围场征婚,百姓阁 亚洲,套房装修
An Application To Intensive Dutch Dairy Landscapes Economics Essay
荷兰奶牛密集景观的应用经济学论文
关于多功能性的概念，政治和学术领域产生了很多的辩论并且发现了不同的解释。然而，没有既定的术语来描述它的关键要素（OECD，2001年）。多功能性是指一个经济活动（通常是指是农业）可能有多个输出，鉴于这个，它可能有助于实现一系列的社会目标。多功能可以被视为一个没有必然内在价值的活动的特征（积极看法）或作为活动的一个理想的目标（规范性观点）。在这项研究中，我们采用的是第二个角度，因为我们考虑到多功能农业潜在的社会价值，第二个原因是因为农业活动的目标是不断尝试着满足社会的需求。从上世纪80年代开始，社会对农业的需求有了新的增加，比如说可持续农业、在农业实践的过程中追求环保以及负责任地管理自然资源。这些想法是在生态、技术和社会经济方面更广泛的可持续发展观（哈伍德，1990），并且也在含蓄地暗示农业的多功能性。
The concept of multifunctionality has generated ample debate in political and academic spheres and different interpretations can be found. However, there is no established terminology to describe its key elements (OECD, 2001b). Multifunctionality refers to the fact that an economic activity (usually agriculture is referred to) may have multiple outputs and, by virtue of this, may contribute to several social objectives at once. Multifunctionality can be seen either as a characteristic of an activity without a necessarily intrinsic value (positive view) or as a desirable objective of the activity (normative view). In this study we adopt the second perspective since we consider multifunctional agriculture potentially socially valuable and therefore a goal for agricultural activities is to try and satisfy social demand. From the 1980s onwards new demands of society to agriculture increased, related to concepts such as sustainable agriculture, environmentally friendly agricultural practices and responsible management of natural resources. These ideas refer to the ecological, technological and socioeconomic dimensions of the broader concept of sustainable development (Harwood, 1990), and implicitly allude to the multifunctional nature of agriculture.
At present, awareness among rural and urban citizens of the positive and negative effects of agriculture beyond commodity production is growing and governments are increasingly looking for ways to ensure that the non-commodity outputs of agriculture correspond in quantity, composition and quality to those demanded by society (OECD, 2003). Delivering to growing public demands raises two main questions for farmers and policy makers: (1) what might the public actually want (Hall et al., 2004); (2) how to integrate preferences of citizens in the evaluation of the multifunctional performance and the sustainability of alternative land use options. An increasing number of studies address integrated and holistic evaluation of the economic, environmental and social impacts of human activities, in general, and of land use and agricultural production in particular (e.g. Parker et al., 2002; Osinski et al., 2003; Van Calker et al., 2006 and 2007; Rossing et al., 2007; Van Keulen, 2007; Van Ittersum et al., 2008). Economic studies can be divided into those that focus on economic valuation of landscapes and their elements, and those that integrate economic aspects within land-use modelling (Osinski et al., 2003), roughly corresponding to the distinct and sometimes conflicting approaches of Environmental Economics and Ecological Economics, respectively (Parra-López et al., 2004). Turner et al. (2000) suggested that integrating key elements in an approach that combines economic valuation, integrated modelling, stakeholder analysis, and multi-criteria evaluation can provide complementary insights into sustainable and welfare-optimizing management and policy. In this paper we investigate these suggestions.
The main objective of this paper is to propose and apply a methodological framework to integrate the social demand for multifunctionality of agriculture in the evaluation and design of more sustainable agro-landscapes composed of dairy farming systems. The methodology will be illustrated in a case study of an intensively managed, ecologically and historically valuable agricultural landscape in the Northern Friesian Woodlands (The Netherlands). The description of the case study is provided in section 2. The methodological framework (Figure 1) consists of three interconnected components which are introduced in sections 3 to 5. In section 3 social preferences for agricultural non-market functions are prioritized using a novel application of the multi-criteria decision analysis techniques of Quality Function Deployment and Analytic Network Process (QFD/ANP). In section 4 the social preferences for non-market functions are combined with benefits from market functions to arrive at social net benefit based on the neoclassical concept of utility. Finally in section 5, the Landscape IMAGES model is used to generate and evaluate alternative landscapes and to reveal trade-offs between market and non-market functions. The results (section 6) demonstrate the alternative development options for the case study landscape and highlight opportunities and pitfalls for further improvement of social net benefit.
The case study: Northern Friesian Woodlands, The Netherlands
The case study focuses on an intensively managed agricultural landscape in the Northern Friesian Woodlands (The Netherlands). This region is characterized by a small scale landscape on predominantly sandy soils with dairy farming as the prevailing land-use activity. On some farms a limited proportion of up to 5% of the area is used for forage maize production, while the rest of the area is occupied by permanent grassland, rotationally grazed and mown. The fields with an average size of 2 ha are often surrounded by hedgerows and frequently border on ponds. The average grazing season lasts 6 months from May to October. Grazing systems range from day and night grazing to restricted and zero grazing. The bio-physical farm and field characteristics and the social demands as articulated in regulations to maintain landscape and land-use have limited the possibilities to convert to large scale agriculture in the past. On the other hand, the region offers ample opportunities to provide non-productive amenities, the remuneration of which has recently been argued to sustain farming in the area (Berentsen et al., 2007).
In the 1990s, the farmers were confronted with strict regulations to reduce emissions of ammonia and nitrate to the environment. Environmental cooperatives VEL (Vereniging Eastermar's Lansdouwe) and VANLA (Vereniging Agrarisch beheer Natuur en Landschap in Achtkarspelen) emerged in the Northern Friesian Woodlands as a response to predominantly generic and means-oriented policy interventions. The cooperatives developed activities to reach the aims of the proposed policies with context-specific measures that were acceptable for farmers. In addition the farmers committed themselves to maintaining the historical landscape which is the basis for a strong local identity of its inhabitants and the cooperatives organized activities related to nature and landscape management by farmers (Renting and Van der Ploeg, 2001; Wiskerke et al., 2003; Anonymous, 2005).
Here we focus on three key non-market functions that are supported by the activities of the environmental cooperatives:
Landscape quality (LQ): This function refers to variation in number of plant species in pasture and to irregularity in the hedgerow pattern, referred to as half-openness of the landscape, and thus pertains to the spatial scales of field and landscape.
Nature value (NV): This function refers to high species diversity in the grass swards and hedgerows (number of species per ha). This function is relevant at the field scale.
Environmental health (EH): Low nitrogen loss from agriculture, here also interpreted at the field scale.
In this paper we will explore opportunities to satisfy both the non-market and the market functions by adapting agricultural land use and land management in an area of 232 ha, comprising three farms. As indicator of the market function we use landscape gross margin (GM), which is defined as the total revenues minus all variable costs, at the landscape scale. The impact of land use and land management is expressed in variable costs and will become apparent in changes in gross margin rather than total economic results, which also include fixed costs (Ondersteijn et al., 2003). Although we distinguish farms to evaluate technical constraints related to ratio between grazed and mown herbage and the maximum allowed fertilizer application rates, we focus on landscape gross margin rather than the farm gross margin for evaluation of on market function to avoid excess detail in disaggregating individual farm gross margin. This aspect is however required for policy design at farm level which will be covered in subsequent research of the present authors.
Prioritizing agricultural non-market functions based on social preferences
The market function of agriculture is assumed to be valued in the market, which reflects preferences and demands of consumers in a monetary value. In contrast, non-market functions are not valued in a market and therefore lack a monetary value, but could affect the welfare of society. In such case preferences of all citizens may be used as a proxy to reflect potential demand. In this section, two methodologies (QFD and ANP) will be combined to estimate social preferences for non-market functions of agro-landscapes. |
