This case study provides an overview of the debate ensuing from the United Kingdom (UK) aiming to leave the European Union (EU) and, with it, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The UK Government has announced its intentions to formulate a novel agricultural policy following the principle that public funding should be restricted to the provision of public goods. However, the acceptance, interpretation, and application of this principle is the subject of intense debate.
The study provides answers to three key questions that future policy must address:
- What are the farm-related public goods that public money should support?
- How should that spending be allocated?
- How much should be spent?
Related Case Studies
This report details the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Standard Statistical Classifications for the Environment, including definitions of terms, selected national practices in estimations of air and water emissions, materials balance sheets, and a bibliography of methodological papers.
This case study assesses the efficacy of the Environmental Stewardship scheme in England to drive changes in national farmland bird populations over the period 2002-2010. It tests for associations between environmental stewardship management options, grouped into categories reflecting intended biological effects (e.g. the presence of stubble, or straw that remains after grains have been harvested) and species’ population growth rates, wherever benefits of management might be expected to occur.
This summary reports on a pilot Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) project funded by South West Water in the catchment of the River Fowey in Cornwall. The scheme looks to fund capital investments on farms that will serve to improve water quality in the River Fowey. This report follows and documents the process of designing and implementing the PES scheme as well as providing an evaluation of the successes and failures of that process in order to provide insights into issues that might arise in similar projects across the United Kingdom.
This case study summarizes the results of a review of the policy-related users and uses of the environmental accounts compiled in a select group of developed countries.