An analytical framework for soil degradation, farming practices, institutions and policy responses

Author

Katrin Prager, Johannes Schuler, Katharina Helming, Peter Zander, Tomas Ratinger and Konrad Hagedorn

No 114773, 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland from European Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: There is a lack of knowledge about the effectiveness and efficiency of soil conservation policies in agriculture and little understanding of how policy measures should be designed to encourage farmers to adopt soil conservation practices. This paper analyzes institutional settings surrounding agricultural soil management in ten European countries based on the Institutions of Sustainability framework. This framework considers the interdependencies between ecological and social systems, taking into account environmental conditions, farming practices impacting on soil conservation, different types of actors, policies, institutions and governance structures. The purpose of this paper is to describe the analytical framework and the methodology that all case studies are based on, present and discuss compared findings, outline implications for successful soil conservation policy, and draw conclusions on the methodological approach. The case studies focused on the main soil degradation types occurring across Europe which are addressed by a broad range of mandatory and incentive policies. The findings highlight the following issues: i) the need to design policies that target the locally most common soil threats and processes in the light of agricultural management; ii) the need to take farming management constraints into consideration, (iii) the need for good communication and cooperation both between agricultural and environmental authorities as well as between governmental and non-governmental stakeholders; iv) the necessary mix of mandatory and incentive instruments; and v) the need for data and monitoring systems allowing the evaluation of the effectiveness of policies and soil conservation practices.

Keywords: Institutional analysis; soil degradation; soil conservation policy; soil conservation measures; farming practices; policy evaluation; Farm Management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations View citations in EconPapers (2) Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://purl.umn.edu/114773 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:eaae11:114773

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland from European Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by AgEcon Search (aesearch@umn.edu).

For further details log on website :
http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/agseaae11/114773.htm