The future of olive groves on sloping land and ex-ante assessment of cross compliance for erosion control

Abstract

a b s t r a c tUnder the past Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) olive oil subsidy regime, farmers were eligible for subsidies on the basis of the amount of olive oil they produced. This led to an intensification of production, particularly on flat land, and had in most cases negative environmental effects, such as more soil erosion on sloping land and more pollution. With the decoupling of agricultural support under the newly established rules of the CAP, formalised in 2005, cross compliance measures have become obligatory.In this paper an ex-ante assessment is made of the application of cross compliance for soil erosion control (natural cover crops and terrace maintenance) in hilly and mountainous olive groves in Trás-osMontes in Portugal. A linear programming model was developed to assess the various socio-economic and environmental effects of four different development scenarios for olive groves. The scenarios were developed on the basis of changing market prices, wage rates and subsidies; their effects included shifts towards intensification, abandonment and organic farming. Simulations considering a minimum return to labour constraint showed very high levels of abandonment, particularly in combination with cross compliance obligations. However, even without this minimum return to labour constraint, abandonment would reach more than 20% in three out of the four scenarios. The model showed that cross compliance obligations could be quite effective in reducing erosion, but that they would depress income in all scenarios as a result of higher abandonment and lower percentage shifts towards intensive systems.

Fine-scale ecological and economic assessment of climate change on olive in the Mediterranean Basin reveals winners and losers

“…In the European Union (EU), the viability of small farms will be further compromised by subsidy policies that favor intensive, less ecologically sustainable olive production systems (29) (SI Appendix, SI Discussion). The combined effect of climate warming and economic EU policy will increase the rate of abandonment of at-risk farms (32) that in addition to income, provide important ecosystem services such as soil conservation, biodiversity habitat, and wildfire prevention (29,30) (SI Appendix, SI Discussion). Technology changes may occur to mitigate climate change effects in some areas (e.g., irrigation), but data are unavailable to include this in our analysis.…”

An Exploration of Scenarios to Support Sustainable Land Management Using Integrated Environmental Socio-economic Models

“…Recent research by Calatrava and Franco (2011) and Franco and Calatrava (2012) shows that mulching was applied by 43% of farmers in southern Spain whereas minimum tillage was adopted by 90%; the fact that the latter SLM technology involves a saving relative to conventional practice explains its spontaneous widespread uptake. These types of measures can be compared with structural measures which often require policy interventions to ensure continued maintenance (de Graaff et al 2010). …”

Programas agroambientales de conservación del suelo en Andalucía: explicando las decisiones de participación y cumplimiento en el sector del olivar

“…En cuanto a la relevancia de la cuantía de los pagos, conviene recordar que ya Graaff y Eppink (1999) sugerían el diseño de un sistema de ayudas basado en una prima básica y en pagos adicionales condicionados a la implementación de medidas de conservación del suelo y el agua en explotaciones de olivar españolas, con el propósito de evitar el abandono de tierras y conservar el olivar tradicional, lo cual parece no haberse logrado convenientemente en la última década, como revelan diversos estudios (Graaff et al, 2010) y como se constata también para nuestro caso en el modelo siguiente (tabla 6).…”