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Evaluation of Agri-environmental Measures

Analytic Hierarchy Process and Cost-effectiveness Analysis for Political Decision-making Support

Dr. Jadwiga Ziolkowska is Chair, Agricultural Policy, Humboldt University of Berlin. E-mail: jadwiga.ziolkowska{at}agrar.hu-berlin.de

In this article, we discuss the implementation of two evaluation approaches—the Analytic Hierarchy Process and the cost-effectiveness analysis for political decision-making support in agri-environmental policy. The approaches represent two different ways of evaluation: hierarchical weighting for estimation of immeasurable environmental benefits and effectiveness analysis focused on economic aspects. These methods can be used separately; however, the combination of the approaches in one evaluation system can help to consider different economic and ecological aspects of environmental protection to a wider extent. The main objective of the article is to investigate which agri-environmental measures would be recommended for political strategies to maximize environmental benefits or else to minimize the realization costs of the measures. The investigation is based on results of a case study conducted in voivodship Subcarpathia in Poland including interviews with agricultural experts, agri-environmental advisors and farmers. The results show that the measures ‘Extensive meadow farming’ and ‘Organic farming’ denote the highest environmental benefits with regard to the envisaged environmental objectives defined in the National Agri-environmental Programme 2004–2006. The cost-effectiveness of agri-environmental measures is differentiated depending on the stakeholder group. The results can be helpful to support political decision-making processes considering simultaneously regional priorities of the environmental protection in rural areas.

International Journal of Rural Management, Vol. 4, No. 1-2, 1-24 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/097300520900400201


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