Agroforestry as a Rural Policy priority

Key words: Agroforestry systems, HNV Farming, CAP strategic plans, Ecoschemes, Protected Landscape elements

Dept of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Agricultural University of Athens, 75, Iera Odos, Athens 11855 gvlahos@aua.gr

Agroforestry Systems And Rural Development

The need to intensify efforts to maintain and expand agroforestry systems has long been extablished, both at the European level and in Greece. However, a parallel discussion has been taking place since the 1990s, focusing on the importance of certain land use and management practices which, apart from the production of food, fiber and energy, contribute to the provision of environmental services (Bignal and McCracken, 1996). Those farming systems contributing to biodiversity conservation are characterised as High Nature Value systems (HNV). The pressures exerted on these systems are of a dual nature. Intensification of farming activities, on the one hand, which involves altering practices that contribute to nature conservation and moving towards practices associated with the prevailing productivist, high-yield model. On the other hand, abandonmentof farming which could have damaging consecuences on environmental conservation. Clear signs of this dual process can be seen in almost all EU countries and Greece in particular.

Most of the time, agroforestry and HNV systems spatially coincide, for obvious reasons, though they also share another characteristic. All the discussions advocating for the need to maintain these systems have been limited among academic circles, with minimal or even non–existent reflection on the policy-making nexus, especially at the lower levels of policy making (Andersen et al., 2004). The intense concern of environmental policy supporters for the successful implementation of the NATURA 2000 framework at the national/regional level, left a very limited margin for efforts towards the protection of ecosystems outside the NATURA 2000. These agroecosystems, although undoubtedly contributing to nature conservation, have been placed lower in the hierarchy of priorities, especially when compared to the main issues at stake, namely protected habitats and species. This prioritisation by environmental stakeholders seems to have heavily influenced the public debate during the design phase of rural development policy. On the other side of the dialogue, that of rural policy makers, the ambiguity on the nature of agroforestry systems has caused a reluctance to promote their maintenance and at the same time a defensive stance, in order to avoid the expansion of protective measures beyond the limits of NATURA 2000 sites, perceived as inhibiting the productive use of agricultural land.

Another factor that has obstructed the inclusion of agroforestry systems maintenance in rural development policy design has been the rather restrictive term included in Annex 2 of the Agreement on Agriculture, within the foundational agreements of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). According to this term, in order to classify support to farmers within the “green” box of WTO, that is for payments that are exempted from trade retributions, there are three prerequisites: a. they must be part of a government programme b. the link of the support with specific environmentally friendly obligations should be documented, and c. “The amount of payment shall be limited to the extra costs or loss of income involved in complying with the government programme” (WTO, Agreement on Agriculture, Annex 2).

It is obvious that this clause promoted changes in practices and systems and therefore left very small to inexistent margins for stakeholders to support the maintenance of traditional extensive systems and practices. Even when the argument that policy inertia would allow undesirable changes was expressed and system conservation measures have been proposed, policy makers have been reluctant to accept that a farmer could be offered incentives in order to change nothing but to merely continue as always even if the usual practice was highly beneficial for the environment. This could be an explanation for the fact that the only reference to agroforestry systems during the 2014-2020 period has been the incentive for the installation of new agroforestry systems and not the maintenance of existing ones. Regardless, even this measure has not been implemented during the whole programming period in Greece.