Economic impacts of alternative agricultural developments on landscape conservation and potential contributions of price premiums for products produced in compliance with nature conservation guidelines in the district of Diepholz, Lower Saxony, Germany
Albert, C.; Aurbacher, J.; von Haaren, C.; Mahnkopf, B.; Petermann, C.
Berichte über Landwirtschaft 87(3): 357-379
2009
ISSN/ISBN: 0005-9080 Accession: 066227014
Landscape conservation faces unfavourable economic conditions due to high or volatile agricultural prices and low budgets for agri-environmental measures. Against this background and by using the example of the Diepholz Moor Lowlands, this article explores the borrowing requirement for landscape conservation based on two different development variants: optimum nature protection and minimum nature protection. The article also studies the extent to which price premiums for meat from animals bred in compliance with nature-conservation guidelines can contribute to the financing of nature conservation. Regionally-specific business data from farms were collected to determine average cost and revenue of landscape conservation with mother cow or sheep breeding. The borrowing requirements of landscape conservation under two alternative scenarios (reference and liberalization) were calculated. It is shown that sheep breeding in the Diepholz district today is financed by public spending only to a marginal extent. In the liberalization scenario however, the economic attractiveness of sheep breeding seems to be relatively more advantageous. In the liberalization scenario, the borrowing requirement in both nature-protection variants decreases against the reference scenario by 5 to 6 percent. The potential contribution that price premiums on meat