Environmental public goods From Farming through Effective Contract Targeting (EFFECT)

Description:

The EFFECT project aims to assess agri-environmental funding programmes and investment grants implemented by EU member states to accelerate eco-innovation, as well as the growing number of environmental certification and labelling schemes established by private actors in this field. Many initiatives are arguably not cost-effective in boosting environmental and climate service provision, may be skewed in terms of distributional impacts, increase risks to farmers, or involve excessive transaction costs. EFFECT aims to develop and pilot a theoretically well-founded and empirically well-adapted package of new contractual frameworks. This package will be designed so to enable farmers to reconcile agricultural production with enhanced delivery of environmental and climate public goods and services to the benefit of society at large.

EFFECT pursues this through a transdisciplinary effort involving a review of past successes and failures, as well as the development and testing of new forms of contracts. The project combines agricultural and environmental science knowledge with theoretical and empirical insights from law, political science, and economics. It further combines efforts from researchers and multiple practice partners and stakeholders to ensure that lessons learned from previous initiatives and the project’s testing of emerging contract frameworks are validated on the ground. For this purpose, nine cases studies in seven European countries (Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary and Romania) are implemented.

EFFECT’s ambition is to foster the actual implementation of agri-environmental contract arrangements, co-developed within the project, which are being put to use towards the end of the project. Furthermore, to ensure the durable impact of the project, EFFECT initiates a cross European innovation process, supports capacity building among decision making bodies and develops a policy evaluation framework.

Project information

Lead

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET

Partners

University Of Glasgow (UK)

Wageningen University (Netherlands)

Fondazione Icons (Italy)

Consorci Centre De Ciencia i Tecnologia Forestal de Catalunya (Spain)

Technische Universitaet Muenchen (Germany)

Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet zu Kiel (Germany)

Tartu Ulikool (Estonia)

Landbrug & Fodevarer F.M.B.A. (Denmark)

University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK)

European Forest Institute (Finland)

Nemzeti Agrarkutatasi es Innovacios Kozpont  (Hungary)

Noardlike Fryske Walden (Netherlands)

Universitatea Stefan Cel Mare Din Suceava (Romania)

Departament d'Acció Climàtica, Alimentació i Agenda Rural (Spain)

Eesti Kutseliste Mesinike Uhing (Estonia)

Magyar Agrar- (Elelmiszergazdasagi es Videkfejlesztesi Kamara (Hungary)

Landesamt Fur Landwirtschaft, Umwelt und Landliche Raume des Landes Schleswig-Holstein (Germany)

Fundatia Adept Transilvania (Romania)

Aki Agrarkozgazdasagi Intezet Nonprofit Kft (Hungary)

Obudai Egyetem (Hungary)

 

Source of funding

H2020-EU.3.2. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy ; RUR-03-2018 - Contracts for effective and lasting delivery of agri-environmental public goods