Effects of the Renewable Energy Act on structural change in Agriculture- The case of biogas

Franziska Appel (), Arlette Ostermeyer and Alfons Balmann ()

No 210956, 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: Biogas production affected agricultural and land markets significantly. This paper provides insights in effects of biogas production on farms and farm structures for the period 2012-2026 in two German regions by using the agent-based simulation model AgriPoliS. We compare the agricultural development in both regions under alternative policy scenarios in order to analyze the effects of biogas production and the impact of the latest amendment in the REA in 2014. Our results show that biogas production provides especially for large farms a profitable income opportunity. However, it implies an increasing dependency of these farms on biogas production and their whole production structures change. Due to an increased competition among farms, rental prices rise. This effect threatens particularly smaller biogas farms. The last amendment of the REA in 2014 with a substantial reduction of the support level attenuates partly some of these effects.

Keywords: Environmental; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae15:210956

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.210956

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