19 pages, We investigate the relationship between EU Common Agricultural Policy environmental payments, and dairy and beef farm level competitiveness and environmental performance. We use an Irish panel of farm level financial data for the years 2000–2017 and apply stochastic frontier analysis. Our estimates identify a positive relationship between technical efficiency and the Green, Low-Carbon, Agri-Environment Scheme for dairy farms, in contrast with the negative relation identified for previous payments of this kind such as the Rural Environment Protection Scheme for both beef and dairy. We then simulate increases in the first type of environmental payments financed through reductions in decoupled payments. We use alternative scenarios for payment redistribution such as flat allocation, allocation to farms with low stocking rates or proportional reallocation of payments. We find that under the second scenario, marginal environmental gains can potentially be achieved for dairy farms. For beef farms, the proportional allocation performs best regarding environmental gains. We also find that under this scenario, the impacts on income inequality can be smoothed for both farm types.
7pgs, Agricultural subsidies are an important factor for influencing food production and therefore
part of a food system that is seen as neither healthy nor sustainable. Here we analyse options
for reforming agricultural subsidies in line with health and climate-change objectives on one
side, and economic objectives on the other. Using an integrated modelling framework
including economic, environmental, and health assessments, we find that on a global scale
several reform options could lead to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and improvements in population health without reductions in economic welfare. Those include a repurposing of up to half of agricultural subsidies to support the production of foods with beneficial
health and environmental characteristics, including fruits, vegetables, and other horticultural
products, and combining such repurposing with a more equal distribution of subsidy payments globally. The findings suggest that reforming agricultural subsidy schemes based on
health and climate-change objectives can be economically feasible and contribute to transitions towards healthy and sustainable food systems
