The increasing importance of measures under the so called "second pillar" of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union raises new challenges to decision-makers. The definition and operationalisation of goals as well as the implementation of concrete measures is a complex task....

Financing agri-environmental programmes in the European Union (EU) takes place in a multi-level system with mixed co-financing and shared financial responsibilities. In this paper we analyse how co-financing influences policy-making in regions taking the case of the agri-environmental programme...

Policies for rural areas have become an important but complex policy field in the European Union`s Common Agricultural Policy. The purpose of this paper is to report on a methodological approach pursued to model the allocation of EAFRD (European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development) funds in...

This study provides an empirical assessment of the competitiveness of Albanian dairy and wine production, based on specifically collected survey data. For both product groups, the analysis is carried out on two levels: farm level production of raw material and processing and manufacturing of the...

The objectives of this study are (i) to analyse the current state of socio-economic sustainability of SFHs and identify the main types of SFH, and (II) to assess the impact of the 2005 EC Rural Development Measures on SFHs' socio-economic sustainability.

This paper is concerned with agri-environmental policy in Germany and focuses in particular on soil and water conservation. At first it discusses to what extent agriculture contributes to erosion and the pollution of surface waters and groundwater with nutrients and pesticides. Whereas erosion...

The present study aims at modelling the impact of different CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) scenarios on 6 case study regional economies. The starting point is the construction of a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) obtained through a combination of mechanical downscaling of higher level...

Social capital is defined as the shared knowledge, trust, and culture, embodied in the structural forms of networks and other stable inter-agent relationships. Social capital has been shown to be more difficult to build than economic capital, and to have greater beneficial effects for community...