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Agri-‐environment in the Rural Economy in Hungary
Agnes Kaloczkai, Hungarian Academy of Sciences [email protected]
Dr Eszter Kovacs, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge
Outline
• Agri-‐environment in Hungary • Our approach and the 2014-‐5 hiatus
• Environmental impact: land use change • Financial role of payments • MoDvaDons for parDcipaDng • Farming Futures
Agri-‐environment in Hungary
• 25 High Nature Value areas • OperaDonal for >10yrs • 270 000 applicants in 2016
• Rules encourage “environmentally-‐ sensiDve” farming
KEY HNV areas Bekes HNV Kiskunsag HNV
Heves Plain HNV
Other HNV areas Hungary
Our research quesDons
• In 2014, the Hungarian government announced that there would be no agri-‐environment payments for the following farming year
• We then asked and evaluated 300 farmers for • what they did differently? • what they kept the same? • What was their opinion and experience of conservaVon-‐oriented subsidy programmes?
• Where did agri-‐environment payments “go”? • What were their future plans?
18469.1
20835.3
18254.3
4500
23205.6
3200
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000 45000 50000
Hevesi-‐sík
Dunavölgyi-‐sík
Békés-‐Csanádi hát
szántó
gyep
más
94 % with livestock
Bekes plain HNV
Danube plain HNV
Heves plain
HNV
Arable Grassland Other
63 % with livestock
74% livestock What land do farmers parVcipate with?
ha
1. Environmental impact
In 2014-‐5, the number of farmers that farmed more intensively to HNV requirements were high across all three sites
Heves-‐plain HNV: 60%
Danube-‐plains HNV: 47% Békés-‐Csanádi plain HNV: 67%
What rules were kept to and why?
• Over 60% of farmers decided that they were going to “actually farm” • ConservaVon rules were largely ignored
77% 33% 38% 43%
57% 52%
48% 60%
nem hagyott táblaszéli szegélyt nem vetett lucernát
több műtrágyát használt több rovarirtószert használt
nem használta a vadriasztó láncot nem követte a madárbarát kaszálási módot
nem hagyott ugart Digyelmen kívül hagyta a vetésforgót Did not keep a cropping rotation
No land areas were left fallow Bird-‐safe mowing not followed
Did not use bird chains while mowing Used more pesticide Used more fertiliser
Did not plant any lucerne Did not leave conservation lanes
RelaDonship between farm size and rule-‐keeping
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
<10 11 -‐ 49 50 -‐ 100 101 -‐ 300 301 -‐ 500 501 -‐ 999 1000 <
ha
Did NOT keep HNV rules Kept HNV rules
2. Financial impact: agri-‐environment’s part
• On average, 33% of farmers did not “develop” their farm in any way during 2014-‐5: “This year, we sold and lived off what we cropped, and nothing got saved. In others years, with agri-‐environment, we lived and planned with the subsidy,” (Farmer, Heves plain, 2016).
• Subsidies were stated to provide for farm renovaDons and to enable further mechanisaDon: labour crucial
• Impact of land size: larger farms stated a preference to “outgrow” agri-‐environment “dependence”
3. ParDcipaDon: moDvaDons
51%
11%
29%
7% 2% A pénzügyi ösztönző miatt
Természetvédelmi szempontok miatt A gyenge gazdálkodási adottságok miatt A terület védettsége miatt
Könnyűnek tűnt betartani az előírásokat
Because of the money ConservaVon Land is marginal Land is formally protected The rules looked easy
3. ParDcipaDon: highly selecDve
49%
25%
13%
5% 7%
adminisztrációs okok miai
az intenzívebb termelés lehetősége miai nem igényelhető a területre támogatás nincs lehetőség állaiartásra vagy az állatszám növelésére nincs válasz
AdministraVve reasons
Higher yield potenVals
Area not eligible
Livestock limitaVon
No answer
4. Futures • 82% of farmers re-‐applied in 2016 • However:
Conclusions
• Agri-‐environment payments led to observable conservaDon improvements as perceived by farmers over the past decade • HalVng payments stopped HNV land use pracVces • Farm size, livestock influences parDcipaDon • ParDcipaDon in agri-‐environment highly selecDve: yield potenDal and wider support structures are key • A more holisDc approach to understanding agri-‐environment’s wider place in the rural economy is required
