Forecasting the environmental and socio-economic consequences of changes in the Common Agricultural Policy

A framework is described that has been used to assess the effect of the European Commission's Agenda 2000 proposal on the Dumfries and Galloway region, Scotland. The model assesses the impact of agriculture on land-use patterns, the environment and socio-economics of the region. It incorporates a farm-type linear programming sub-model with environmental and socio-economic sub-models. In the environmental model, the environmental factors and management practices for each of the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute Land Cover classifications that were relevant to farm activity were defined. The changes in management practices and the Land Cover type of the 10 nearest parcels of land were used to determine the likelihood of a parcel of land changing its associated vegetation type. Using the March 1998 Agenda 2000 proposals, the linear programming model predicted that net farm incomes would fall and the environmental sub-model estimated that approximately 2.6% of the land area would change its vegetation type. The model predicted that diversity in the landscape would be reduced by the proposals. The changes in farm output would also result in falling incomes and employment across the region.