The Agricultural Research Centre and the Estonian Ministry of Agriculture, in cooperation with three Finnish partners, organised an international conference entitled ‘Using Evaluation to Enhance the Rural Development Value of Agri-environmental Measures’ in Pärnu, Estonia, from June 17-19, 2008 which was attended by over 140 people from 20 countries (19 EU Member States plus Turkey).

The aim of the conference was to bring together a range of stakeholders with an active interest in making more efficient and effective use of evaluation within the rural development policy-making cycle, notably regarding the evaluation of agri-environment measures.

The conference was intended to provoke and stimulate a learning process amongst participants through the free and active exchange of information and experience. However, certain issues and themes emerged as “hot topics” of discussion.

It is becoming increasingly clear, for example, that the agri-environment payment concept based on costs incurred and income forgone is much more appropriate for addressing the environmental impacts arising from agricultural intensification, rather than for rewarding ongoing positive management in farming systems that are no longer economically viable. This helps to explain why current agri-environment schemes are less effective at targeting those farmers who have a very low income in the first place (a characteristic of many farmers in EU10+2 and why reservations are increasingly expressed over the usefulness of agri-environment payments based on the current calculation methods for supporting High Nature Value (HNV) farming systems. At the same time, however, agri-environment payments are becoming increasingly unattractive to the larger-scale, more intensive and economically-orientated farmers in light of increasing commodity prices and changing economic circumstances.

Awareness of the significance of HNV farming systems must continue to be raised amongst farmers, policy-makers and the wider public.

There are major concerns over cross-compliance and the additionality of ‘broad and shallow’ agri-environment schemes. Both are targeted at the mainstream producer, but their environmental benefits remain unproven, debatable and a big challenge for evaluators. More science-based decisions are clearly needed in the design of agri-environment schemes and related policies. Non-coherence between agricultural and environmental policies remains a constant source of frustration throughout the EU Member States, and continues to be highlighted by discussions on the HNV concept. Awareness of the significance of HNV farming systems must continue to be raised amongst farmers, policy-makers and the wider public.

The concerns over agri-environmental targeting are linked to the crucial discussions on the value of public goods from agriculture, although clarification of the stock of public goods and its quantification in physical terms is required to help communicate the concept. It is also essential to acknowledge the notion that public goods have a strong regional and local context. Different cultures and societies within the EU have different preferences for landscape types, including the Estonian preference for forests and wetlands!

An increasing emphasis on using “public money” to deliver “public benefits” will inevitably also demand the development of a much stronger evaluation culture amongst Member States.

Much greater investment is required in data collection and further research to underpin the forthcoming debate on the place of the “public money for public goods” concept within the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). However, based upon the recent CAP Health Check negotiations, one can only speculate on how difficult it will be in the coming years to effectively push the “public goods” issue up the CAP reform agenda! A good starting point would be to avoid the inconsistent and ambiguous use of the term “public goods”. One speaker at the conference suggested that “public benefits” would be a more useful term for describing the diverse range of non-commodity outputs produced by European agricultural systems. An increasing emphasis on using “public money” to deliver “public benefits” will inevitably also demand the development of a much stronger evaluation culture amongst Member States. It also raises the fundamental question of, ’What do evaluators really need to make informed and effective judgements?’

Much greater use should be made of the accumulated knowledge of the research community, especially for helping to make the connection between results and impacts. Scientists should also be consulted more actively as advisers in the policy-making process, including in the initial design and subsequent reformulation of agri-environment measures. Ministries should be discouraged from simply sub-contracting ‘independent evaluators’ and should pay more attention to increasing their own capacity to make evaluation truly on-going – both in terms of their reporting obligations to the European Commission, and more importantly by actively providing feedback to their own policy-makers and programming staff. Much more attention should therefore be given to the institutional aspects of establishing and managing effective monitoring and evaluation systems at Member State level, and the new Evaluation Network/Helpdesk should encourage as much exchange of information and experience on this issue as possible!

The conference report and additional information can be obtained from the website of the Estonian Agricultural Research Centre.