A Case Study on the Application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to Assess Agri-Environmental Measures of the Rural Development Programme (RDP 2007-2013) in Slovenia

The reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2003 focused mainly on the economic and environmental challenges. The Rural Development Programme 2007-2013, hereafter RDP, being implemented in Slovenia is therefore aiming at promoting proposed activities that help to improve the rural areas. Agri-environmental measures (AEMs) encourage farmers to make an environmental commitment for a period of at least 5 years aiming at preserving the environment and maintaining the countryside. Because of practising environmental friendly production methods, the farmers might be encountered with more costs and reduction of yield. Therefore, payments are made as compensation. Concentrating only on one of the four pillars of the RDP, "Improvement of environment and the countryside", this paper attempts to assess the Slovenian agri-environmental measures with the help of the multicriteria decision analysis, that is, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and its supporting software Expert Choice(TM). In the presented case study, three main criteria and their attributes were determined. With the help of experts (questionnaires), data were collected, which made the assessment possible. The results show that organic fruit, vine and horticultural production are seen as the most important AEM. This is specific for the Republic of Slovenia because of its large amount of area designated as least favoured areas (LFA) that are not suitable for arable farming.