Developing payment-by-results approaches for agri-environment schemes: Experience from an arable trial in England

S.P. Chaplin, J. Mills and H. Chiswell

Land Use Policy, 2021, vol. 109, issue C

Abstract: There is increasing interest in the potential for payment-by-results approaches to be adopted more widely in agri-environment schemes to address some of the limitations of conventional action-based approaches. To date, researchers have almost exclusively applied the approach in grassland farming systems. This paper reports on the results from an English, pure payment-by-results pilot scheme that tested the delivery of two environmental objectives: provision of winter bird food for farmland birds and provision of pollen and nectar resources for pollinating insects in arable farming systems, and incorporated farmer self-assessments. The method employed an assessment of environmental outcomes using an experimental design, recording the number of plants/seed heads per quadrat for specified species and an analysis of farmers’ attitudes using a qualitative survey. The results from 15 farms revealed improved environmental performance compared to similar measures implemented under conventional agri-environment schemes. The analysis also revealed a high correlation of farmer self-assessment of results with expert assessments. Survey findings also identified farmers’ views on the advantages (flexibility and freedom, fairness) and disadvantages (risk of failure and non-payment) of such an approach.

Keywords: Results-based agri-environment payment schemes, Farmer behaviour, self-assessment; Risk preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:109:y:2021:i:c:s026483772100421x

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105698

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