Legume production challenged by European policy coherence: a case-study approach from French and German dairy farms

Julia Jouan (), Julia Heinrichs (), Wolfgang Britz and Christoph Pahmeyer ()
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Julia Jouan: SMART-LERECO - Structures et Marché Agricoles, Ressources et Territoires - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - AGROCAMPUS OUEST
Julia Heinrichs: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Christoph Pahmeyer: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

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Abstract: Legumes can contribute to a more sustainable agriculture by limiting N fertilisation, diversifying crop rotation and substituting imported protein-rich feed. However, their production remains low in the European Union, which had led to specific policies. For instance, following the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, France established Voluntary Coupled Support (VCS) scheme for legumes. Germany did not introduce a VCS, but provides more favourable implementation of the Nitrates Directive (ND) for legumes by allowing spreading manure on these crops. Our study quantifies economic and environmental impacts of the VCS and measures of the ND affecting legume production in France and Germany. We employ the bio-economic model FarmDyn, parameterised for a typical dairy farm in France and Germany, to analyse different levels of VCS per hectare and to compare the French versus the German implementation of the ND. Results suggest that VCS leads to a significant increase in legume production. The implementation of the German ND can foster legume production due to the possibility of spreading manure on legumes. The policy induced increase in legume production is lower in the German farm due to higher opportunity costs of legumes. In both farms, the profit slightly increases but the share of VCS in the profit rises. Environmental indicators are overall improved. Thus, VCS, coupled with an adapted implementation of the Nitrate Directive, is an effective policy to foster environmental benefits from increased legume production. However, the effectiveness of these policies highly depends on the opportunity costs of legumes in each country.

Keywords: farmdyn; bio-economic model; protein crop; policy coherence; mathematical programming; protein self-sufficiency; nitrates Directive (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-05-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02197018v1
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Published in 172. EAAE Seminar 'Agricultural policy for the environment or environmental policy for agriculture?‘, European Association of Agricultural Economists (EAAE). INT., May 2019, Bruxelles, Belgium. 19 p

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Working Paper: Legume production challenged by European policy coherence: a case-study approach from French and German dairy farms (2019)
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