Project details

The project will develop a methodology to internalise positive and/or negative environmental externalities (which are external to the present economic realisation but not to the state of the biosphere) resulting from different agricultural practices in the economic performances of the primary sector, using a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach, capable of eliciting the full value of goods and services provided by agriculture. To identify the externalities produced by agricultural activities, the project will define the qualitative and quantitative ecological framework within which agriculture should use – in a sustainable way – natural resources and the environment. Regarding the type of agri-environmental measures (e.g. market-based or command and control approach) to be adopted to internalise externalities, this will depend on the outcomes of the ecological analysis and of the study of the economic, social and institutional situation at the national, regional and local level. The project will be carried out in seven different countries. At the European level the aim is to enhance transparency and promote a wider application of the subsidiarity principle in managing agri-environment programmes. Co-ordinator of this project is The World Conservation Union (IUCN), European Regional Office, Tilburg, The Netherlands. Other partners involved in the project come from Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Hungary, Estonia and Germany.