Linking farm-level models with environmental impact models
Résumé
The recent proposals regarding the post-2013 reform of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) have confirmed the increasing “greening” of the European agricultural policy (see Matthews, 2011; Baldock et al., 2010). In order to provide European decision makers with consistent recommendations regarding policy instruments, economists have been developing models dedicated to predicting environmental impacts of production decisions, with the objective of representativeness and support for public policies. Section 7.2 presents the challenges associated with the development of interlinked models of production (economics) and environmental impacts (other disciplines), in a context of a widening range of environmental issues and more farmtargeted policies. Such challenges include methodological issues in interlinking economic and biophysical models and in modelling environmental impacts through land-use change models, the role of environmental indicators, and the impact of second-pillar policies on production and land-use decisions. A review of selected interlinked models is proposed in Section 7.3, which discusses the way such models address these challenges. Concluding remarks and considerations of the issues of linking farm-level models with environmental impact models towards development of a novel generic farm level model are made in Section 7.4.