Socio-Economic Marine Research Unit, Whitaker Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland.
Socio-Economic Marine Research Unit, Whitaker Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland.
J Environ Manage. 2020 May 15;262:110243. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110243. Epub 2020 Mar 3.
Agri-environment schemes (AES) are an important part of agricultural policy within Europe. They seek to achieve important goals with regards to biodiversity and the protection of natural resources while also helping to maintain culturally important landscapes and agricultural practices. Participation rates have been an important area of research into assessing the success of AES. Within Ireland and more broadly across Europe, systematic non-participation in AES has been observed. Certain farm and farmer types have been found more likely to participate. In this paper a contingent valuation exercise is conducted that assesses how AES payment levels impact on the participation decision of farmers. A bivariate probit with sample selection is utilised to account for farmers who are unwilling to participate regardless of payment levels. This allows for a more accurate estimation of farmer willingness-to-accept to participate in the hypothetical AES presented. It also offers insight into the characteristics of farmers who are unlikely to ever participate in these schemes. From the results it appears a significant proportion (30%) of farmers are unlikely to ever participate in AES, with the remaining open to participation depending on the compensation offered. It is argued that increased compensation levels may increase participation rates among some farmers who to date have been unlikely to participate.
农业环境计划（AES）是欧洲农业政策的重要组成部分。它们旨在实现生物多样性和自然资源保护等重要目标，同时帮助维持具有文化重要性的景观和农业实践。参与率一直是评估 AES 成功与否的重要研究领域。在爱尔兰乃至更广泛的欧洲范围内，系统的非参与 AES 现象已经出现。某些农场和农民类型更有可能参与。本文进行了一项意愿评估，评估 AES 支付水平如何影响农民的参与决策。利用二元 Probit 模型和样本选择来考虑无论支付水平如何都不愿意参与的农民。这可以更准确地估计农民对参与提出的假设 AES 的接受程度。它还深入了解那些不太可能参与这些计划的农民的特征。从结果来看，似乎有相当比例（30%）的农民永远不会参与 AES，其余的则根据提供的补偿来决定是否参与。有人认为，增加补偿水平可能会提高一些迄今为止不太可能参与的农民的参与率。
