IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/eaa166/276181.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Design of Agri-Environmental Schemes – evidence from the monitoring and evaluation GLAS in Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Elliott, John
  • Image, Mike

Abstract

The Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS) is the main agri-environment scheme (AES) in Ireland, funded under the CAP rural development programme (RDP) 2014-2020. GLAS was designed to support and encourage more sustainable production practices at farm level and underpins a range of over-arching environmental objectives as set down in EU Directives and National and International Strategies. AES have been widely used as a policy instrument to deliver environmental protection and enhancement on commercial farms, above and beyond the regulatory baseline. To be effective, this requires a number of individual land managers within a given landscape or catchment to voluntarily participate in schemes and select and implement an appropriate mix of actions over time. There is a wealth of literature on the design of agri- environmental schemes based on theories of behaviour change (scheme uptake and attitudinal change) and how to affect environmental change (effectiveness of actions at site and landscape scale). This paper considers both. In 2015, ADAS and Scott Cawley were contracted to undertake the monitoring and evaluation of GLAS to evaluate scheme structure, composition and effectiveness. The approach started with a detailed literature review of the existing research on agri-environment measures in Ireland and the development of a sampling plan and protocols for a longitudinal (5 year) field-based assessment of GLAS actions targeting biodiversity. Actions for water and climate change are being assessed through a modelling approach, using FARMSCOPER, a decision support tool to assess diffuse agricultural pollutant loads to water and air. The work also includes an attitudinal survey of the GLAS sample farmers as well as a counterfactual group (non-participants) to understand farmer motivations to participate in the scheme, secure feedback on their experience and identify influences of participation on environmental behaviour. Critically, all elements measure change over time (3 field surveys and 2 attitudinal surveys) and include a baseline assessment, while the evaluation of motivations and influence on attitudes is an important element for a voluntary scheme. A desk-based evaluation of GLAS will provide evidence of scheme impact for the 2019 enhanced RDP reporting and make recommendations for future agri-environment schemes. The baseline field survey has been completed on a sample of 313 farms, using ‘Measures of Success’ for 26 actions to assess site condition and action implementation. Bird actions and simple habitat actions were generally well implemented and most measures of success were met but this was less so for more complex habitat actions. The attitudinal survey found that half of scheme participants were part-time farmers, mainly cattle rearing (37%) and mixed livestock farms (31%) and key reasons for participation in GLAS were financial. For water and climate change, the model development provides a spatially explicit baseline assessment of pollutants. Catchment scale impact is based on action uptake by farm type for each WFD waterbody at Ireland level. Nationally 32% of agricultural land is in the GLAS scheme but only 13% of farms are specialist dairying and this is expected to limit the contribution to mitigating the impacts of agriculture on water quality and climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Elliott, John & Image, Mike, 2018. "Design of Agri-Environmental Schemes – evidence from the monitoring and evaluation GLAS in Ireland," 166th Seminar, August 30-31, 2018, Galway, West of Ireland 276181, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:eaa166:276181
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.276181
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/276181/files/Design%20of%20Agri-Environmental%20Schemes%20%E2%80%93%20evidence%20from%20the%20monitoring%20and%20evaluation%20GLAS%20in%20Ireland.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.276181?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vollenweider, Xavier & Di Falco, Salvatore & O’Donoghue, Cathal, 2011. "Risk preferences and voluntary agri-environmental schemes: does risk aversion explain the uptake of the Rural Environment Protection Scheme?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 37585, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Rob Fraser, 2009. "Land Heterogeneity, Agricultural Income Forgone and Environmental Benefit: An Assessment of Incentive Compatibility Problems in Environmental Stewardship Schemes," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 190-201, February.
    3. Paula Cullen & Pierre Dupraz & James Moran & Pat Murphy & Ronan O'Flaherty & Cathal O'Donoghue & Robert O'Shea & Mary Ryan, 2018. "Agri‐Environment Scheme Design: Past Lessons and Future Suggestions," EuroChoices, The Agricultural Economics Society, vol. 17(3), pages 26-30, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lapierre, Margaux & Le Velly, Gwenolé & Bougherara, Douadia & Préget, Raphaële & Sauquet, Alexandre, 2023. "Designing agri-environmental schemes to cope with uncertainty," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    2. Rob Fraser, 2013. "To Cheat or Not To Cheat: Moral Hazard and Agri-environmental Policy," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 527-536, September.
    3. Emmanuelle Quillérou & Rob Fraser, 2010. "Adverse Selection in the Environmental Stewardship Scheme: Does the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme Design Reduce Adverse Selection?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 369-380, June.
    4. Mark Brady & Konrad Kellermann & Christoph Sahrbacher & Ladislav Jelinek, 2009. "Impacts of Decoupled Agricultural Support on Farm Structure, Biodiversity and Landscape Mosaic: Some EU Results," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 563-585, September.
    5. Zohra Bouamra-Mechemache & Vincent Chatellier & Luc Delaby & Cécile Détang-Dessendre & Jean-Louis Peyraud & Vincent Requillart, 2021. "Why and how to regulate animal production and consumption: the case of the European Union," Post-Print hal-03215198, HAL.
    6. Massfeller, Anna & Meraner, Manuela & Hüttel, Silke & Uehleke, Reinhard, 2021. "Farmers’ acceptance of results-based agri-environmental schemes – insights from a case study in North Rhine-Westphalia," 61st Annual Conference, Berlin, Germany, September 22-24, 2021 317066, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA).
    7. Drichoutis, Andreas C. & Koundouri, Phoebe, 2012. "Estimating risk attitudes in conventional and artefactual lab experiments: The importance of the underlying assumptions," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 6, pages 1-15.
    8. Salas, Paula Cordero & Roe, Brian E. & Sohngen, Brent, 2012. "Addressing Additionality in REDD Contracts when Formal Enforcement is Absent," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124505, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Cécile Détang-Dessendre & Hervé Guyomard & Vincent Réquillart & Louis-Georges Soler, 2020. "Changing Agricultural Systems and Food Diets to Prevent and Mitigate Global Health Shocks," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-13, August.
    10. Bougherara, Douadia & Lapierre, Margaux & Préget, Raphaële & Sauquet, Alexandre, 2021. "Do farmers prefer increasing, decreasing, or stable payments in Agri-environmental schemes?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    11. Emmanuelle Quillérou & Rob Fraser, 2010. "Adverse Selection in the Environmental Stewardship Scheme: Does the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme Design Reduce Adverse Selection?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(2), pages 369-380, June.
    12. Huber, Robert & Lehmann, Bernard, 2010. "Economies of Scope in the Agricultural Provision of Ecosystem Services: An Application to a High Cost Production Region," German Journal of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department for Agricultural Economics, vol. 59(02), pages 1-15, June.
    13. Laure Kuhfuss & Julie Subervie, 2015. "Do agri-environmental schemes help reduce herbicide use? Evidence from a natural experiment in France," Post-Print hal-01199067, HAL.
    14. Cullen, Paula & Ryan, Mary & O'Donoghue, Cathal & Kilgariff, Paul, 2018. "The Economics of Agri-Environment Scheme Design: An Irish Case Study," 92nd Annual Conference, April 16-18, 2018, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 273499, Agricultural Economics Society.
    15. François J Dessart & Jesús Barreiro-Hurlé & René van Bavel, 2019. "Behavioural factors affecting the adoption of sustainable farming practices: a policy-oriented review," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 46(3), pages 417-471.
    16. Mack, Gabriele & Ritzel, Christian & Jan, Pierrick, 2020. "Determinants for the Implementation of Action-, Result- and Multi-Actor-Oriented Agri-Environment Schemes in Switzerland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    17. Dupraz, Pierre, 2021. "Policies for the ecological transition of agriculture: the livestock issue," Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 101(4), January.
    18. Laure Kuhfuss & Florence Jacquet & Raphaële Preget & Sophie Thoyer, 2012. "Le dispositif des MAEt pour l’enjeu eau : une fausse bonne idée ?," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement, INRA Department of Economics, vol. 93(4), pages 395-422.
    19. Boisvert, Richard N. & Blandford, David, 2012. "Meeting multiple policy objectives under GHG emission reduction targets," 86th Annual Conference, April 16-18, 2012, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 135515, Agricultural Economics Society.
    20. Seong-Hoon Cho & Bijay P. Sharma, 2020. "Optimal spatial budget distribution of forest carbon payments that balances the returns and risks associated with conservation costs," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(8), pages 7239-7267, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy; Environmental Economics and Policy;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:eaa166:276181. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.