Clive Potter

Recruiting the new conservationists: Farmers' adoption of agri-environmental schemes in the U.K.

Abstract Financial incentives available to farmers under the Governments relaunched agri-environmental policy (AEP) promise to recruit more farmers into conservation schemes than ever before. The success of these voluntary schemes, which offer payments in return for farmers agreeing to desist from certain damaging operations or carry out environmentally sensitive ones, is widely proclaimed, chiefly with reference to the promising levels of enrolment that have already been achieved under the Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA) programme. Increasingly, however, attention is focusing on the environmental benefits that are being achieved on the ground and their longer-term durability. This paper reports on a survey of 101 farmers in South East England conducted with a view to investigating the level of engagement of those currently enrolled in such schemes. Focusing on the motivational aspects, it points to wide variations in the level of commitment and sympathy with the wider objectives of AEP schemes and places farmers on a participation spectrum ranging from the most resistant non-adopters at one end to the most active adopters at the other. The policy implications of this categorisation are explored and recommendations made for pushing more farmers towards the active end of the spectrum.

Environmental Stewardship in UK agriculture: A comparison of the environmentally sensitive area programme and the Countryside Stewardship Scheme in South East England

Abstract Research into the adoption of Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) has typically sought to identify the defining characteristics of participants and the ‘barriers to entry’ that dissuade others from joining. More recently, attention has focused on the motivation of participants and non-participants in helping to understand patterns of participation. This paper compares the pattern of participation in two distinct schemes operating in South East England. Indirect evidence suggests that scheme design and implementation is influencing the type of farmer joining and their motivation for doing so. Results from a survey of farmers also support the idea that the schemes are recruiting from different sections of the farming community. ESA farmers are largely motivated by financial gain, whereas those enrolling land in the Countryside Stewardship Scheme have more clearly defined conservation motives. Although there is also a ‘core’ of resistant non-participants, further changes to the design and delivery of policy could encourage a large number of ‘potential enrolers’ to join.

The conservation status and potential of elderly farmers: Results from a survey in England and Wales

Abstract The significant amount of rural land that is presently under the ownership or management control of elderly farmers in the EC suggests an important future role for this section of the farming community as government subsidised producers of public environmental goods. This paper draws on a survey of farmers in England and Wales to test the hypothesis that farmers in old age are likely to be running down their holdings or in some way extensifying production in environmentally beneficial ways. It also assesses the willingness and ability of such farmers to enrol their land and farms into ‘environmentally friendly’ farming schemes. The results suggest that, where it occurs, running-down is most likely to take place on holdings without successors. Elderly farmers are willing to enrol in schemes, provided required changes in farming practice are small and can be accommodated within existing plans. Conservationists are increasingly interested in elderly farmers but it is still far from clear that elderly farmers are much interested in conservation.

Farmer participation in voluntary land diversion schemes: Some predictions from a survey

Abstract National and European agricultural policy schemes are now coming forward which rely on land diversion to achieve a variety of supply control, social and environmental policy goals. Operating on a voluntary basis, these will depend for their success on sufficient numbers of farmers agreeing to enrol land in sufficient quantities and in the right localities. Participation is thus a crucial variable in any assessment of land diversion policies. This paper draws on the results of a farm survey to make some predictions about the level and pattern of uptake of a range of such schemes, identifying the characteristics of resistors and adopters and exploring the motives of participants. It is concluded that land diversion will have most appeal to well-placed farmers who are able to justify the diversion of land out of an agricultural use in terms of forestry and conservation plans which have already been laid. The implication is that voluntary schemes may not be especially powerful instruments for bringing about land use changes on the large number of holdings in the U.K. which presently lack any history of conservation or forestry management, at least not without accompanying reductions in the level of market support for agriculture.

Agricultural liberalization in the European union: an analysis of the implications for nature conservation

Abstract The liberalization of agricultural policy is a more realistic prospect today than ever before. Following the Uruguay Round Agriculture Agreement of 1993, European policymakers are committed, at least at the level of rhetoric, to the further progressive decoupling of agricultural support in order to increase the exposure of Europes farmers to world markets. There are compelling reasons to believe that, by the turn of the century, policymakers will come under mounting pressure to further liberalize the CAP. The environmental implications of this policy shift are profound. According to some commentators, the rural environment stands to benefit from a double dividend: once when the reduction in prices brings about an extensification of production, and again when resources previously committed to price support are reinvested in agri-environmental schemes. This paper considers the validity of this important idea. It examines the assumptions behind the extensification effect and discusses the willingness and ability of policymakers to plough substantial sums of public money into fully decoupled agrienvironmental programmes. The paper suggests that the first round effects of a withdrawal of support may not be unambiguously good for the European countryside, while the ‘green recoupling’ of support could prove more complicated politically than is often assumed.

The targeting of rural environmental policies: an assessment of agri‐environmental schemes in the UK

Abstract The targeting of environmental policies holds the key to their effectiveness and value for money. In this paper we look specifically at the targeting of the various agri‐environmental schemes likely to be on offer to UK farmers under a reformed Common Agricultural Policy. The manner in which these schemes are targeted—at groups of farmers or areas of land—and the precision with which target groups or target land is identified will be critical in their success or failure. One approach is to target the farming systems thought most environmentally sensitive. This avoids drawing lines on a map and may allow policy makers to channel money into the hands of economically disadvantaged farmers or those vulnerable to policy change. But there is also a need for a more radical and geographically‐targeted approach if problems like soil erosion and aquifer protection—requiring drastic land use shifts within specified areas—are to be tackled effectively. We assess the scope for using existing datasets to ident...

Conservation under a European farm survival policy

Abstract This paper examines the implications for conservation of an agricultural sociostructural policy that in recent years has come closer to resembling a policy for farm survival than of liquidation. It begins by exploring how far the preservation of existing farm structures is necessary if conservation goals are to be achieved. The paper goes on to assess on this basis whether a farm survival policy will further or retard the conservation effort in a period of farming contraction. The offering of income aids to fanners who, in return agree to make their farming practices more environmentally sensitive, is the most direct and powerful way a farm survival policy can be arranged to benefit conservation.

Landscapes and livelihoods: environmental protection and agricultural support in the wake of Agenda 2000

Abstract The European Commissions Agenda 2000 for reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is not the radical overhaul of agricultural support that was expected. Regarded not as the conclusion, however, but as the start of a process of reform that will increasingly be subject to external influence, the proposals mark an important stage on the road to an integrated European Rural Policy. So far as landscape protection is concerned, two key questions need to be asked: first, how successful have policy makers been in tackling one of the underlying causes of environmental destruction by decoupling agricultural support from farmers’ production decisions? Second, to what extent have they succeeded in recoupling support to wider social and environmental objectives? This article assesses Agenda 2000 in these terms. It goes on to discuss what decoupling and recoupling might mean for the future relationship between farming livelihoods and the conservation of agricultural landscapes in the context of a more liberal...