The Effect of Mandatory Agro-Environmental Policy on Farm Fertiliser and Pesticide Expenditure

• EU farmers are subject to mandatory cross-compliance measures, requiring them to meet environmental conditions to be eligible for public support. These obligations reinforce incentives for farmers to change their behaviour towards the environment. We apply quasi-experimental methods to measure the causal relationship between cross-compliance and some specific farm environmental performance. We find that cross-compliance reduced farm fertiliser and pesticide expenditure. This result also holds for farmers who participated in other voluntary agro-environmental schemes. However, the results do not support our expectations that farmers who relied on larger shares of public payments had a stronger motivation to improve their environmental performance.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Agriculture

common agriculture policy

cross-compliance

environment

EU

farm

fertiliser and pesticide use

Q12

Q18

Q58

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

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