Effects of agri-environmental measures and changes in EU single farm payments on Dutch agriculture

Part of the Health check of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union in 2008, will be a discussion of the linkage between direct payments to farmers and the contribution of agricultural production to social important values. The objective of this paper is to analyse the economic and environmental effects of extra region specific environmental measures and a redistribution of direct payments to the Dutch agricultural sector in 2020. In doing so a chain of models is used from the dairy farm level to the regional sector level in the Netherlands to the European sector level. From the dairy farm model it is found that the extra-environmental measures result in a decrease in the number of dairy cows per ha and a decrease in the gross margin per ha in the regions at hand. At maximum the gross margin decreases with about € 1,300 per ha. This is the case on intensive types of dairy farms in the Nature2000 areas. Linking and aggregating these results to the regional sector level and using the sector model of the Netherlands it is found that income from dairy farming at sector level and national milk production decreases with about 6%. Emission of ammonia decreases with 11% and Nitrogen (N) surplus at soil level decreases with 22%. However, economic and environmental results can be very different per type of dairy farm and province.economic models, model linking, policy, regions, dairy farming, environment and nature, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Livestock Production/Industries, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,