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The purpose of this report is to present possible impacts of new technology and changes in legislation on the profitability of different types of organic farms. The aim is also to look at both the current and future trends in the organic area in Denmark. The farm level analyses are carried out as part of a larger project entitled "Economic analyses of the future development of organic farming – effects at the field, farm, sector and macroeconomic level". The project links effects at the field-level with analyses at the farm level. These effects are then used in sector and macroeconomic analyses, which are described in other reports from Food and Resource Economic Institute (Jacobsen, 2005 and Andersen et al., 2005). This gives coherent results from the field to the macroeconomic level regarding changes in technology and legislation.

In 2014, a radical shift took place in Danish water planning. Following years of a top-down water planning approach, 23 regional water councils were established to co-create and provide input to Danish authorities on the development of River Basin Management Plans (RBMP). The water councils advised local authorities on the application of measures to improve the physical conditions in Danish streams within a given economic frame. The paper shows the difference the use of water councils (public participation) made by comparing the final water council proposal included in the 2015 RBMP to the RBMPs proposed by the central government (Nature Agency) in 2014. The study concludes that the measures proposed by the water councils will generally deliver better results than the proposed Nature Agency plans, which do not include the same level of participation. Specifically, the water councils with stakeholder involvement proposed a much longer network of streams (3800 km), yielding a better ecological outcome than the shorter stream network (1615 km) proposed by the Nature Agency for the same budget. Having a structured and fixed institutional frame around public participation (top-down meeting bottom-up) can produce cost-effective results, but the results show that cost-effectiveness was not the only deciding factor, and that local circumstances like the practicalities of implementing the measures were also considered when developing the Programmes of Measures. The findings suggest that the use of water councils in water planning has significant advantages, including the fact that the knowledge of local conditions helps to identify efficient solutions at lower costs, which can be useful for administrators, policy-makers, and other stakeholders implementing theWater Framework Directive in years to come. ; In 2014, a radical shift took place in Danish water planning. Following years of a top-down water planning approach, 23 regional water councils were established to co-create and provide input to Danish authorities on the development of River Basin Management Plans (RBMP). The water councils advised local authorities on the application of measures to improve the physical conditions in Danish streams within a given economic frame. The paper shows the difference the use of water councils (public participation) made by comparing the final water council proposal included in the 2015 RBMP to the RBMPs proposed by the central government (Nature Agency) in 2014. The study concludes that the measures proposed by the water councils will generally deliver better results than the proposed Nature Agency plans, which do not include the same level of participation. Specifically, the water councils with stakeholder involvement proposed a much longer network of streams (3800 km), yielding a better ecological outcome than the shorter stream network (1615 km) proposed by the Nature Agency for the same budget. Having a structured and fixed institutional frame around public participation (top-down meeting bottom-up) can produce cost-effective results, but the results show that cost-effectiveness was not the only deciding factor, and that local circumstances like the practicalities of implementing the measures were also considered when developing the Programmes of Measures. The findings suggest that the use of water councils in water planning has significant advantages, including the fact that the knowledge of local conditions helps to identify efficient solutions at lower costs, which can be useful for administrators, policy-makers, and other stakeholders implementing theWater Framework Directive in years to come.

Cost-benefit analyses are commonly applied to assess the net welfare effects of policies to improve surface water quality. These analyses often disregard the biophysical fact that from implementation of policy measures to resulting improvements on water quality there will typically be considerable time lags, and in many cases there is a risk that the measures will not actually lead to the expected improvement. Based on a case study, we show that explicitly accounting for such time lags and outcome uncertainty in the benefit estimation can have non-negligible impacts on cost-benefit analysis findings. Our analysis indicates that reaching the EU Water Framework Directive target for our case study will lead to large and robust welfare increases. Even if the target proves more difficult or more costly to reach than expected with known policy measures, our results suggest that attempting to do so will still lead to a net welfare gain to society. Increasing time lags and uncertainty regarding water quality improvements do decrease the benefits, but the benefits still outweigh the aggregate costs of policy measures. Only in the worst case scenario, combining a long time lag and a high level of outcome uncertainty for the water quality improvement with relatively high costs of policy measures, we are close to a break-even. Hence, we do not find evidence supporting a case for disproportional cost exemption from the WFD target being relevant for the Limfjorden case.

Cost-benefit analyses are commonly applied to assess the net welfare effects of policies to improve surface water quality. These analyses often disregard the biophysical fact that from implementation of policy measures to resulting improvements on water quality there will typically be considerable time lags, and in many cases there is a risk that the measures will not actually lead to the expected improvement. Based on a case study, we show that explicitly accounting for such time lags and outcome uncertainty in the benefit estimation can have non-negligible impacts on cost-benefit analysis findings. Our analysis indicates that reaching the EU Water Framework Directive target for our case study will lead to large and robust welfare increases. Even if the target proves more difficult or more costly to reach than expected with known policy measures, our results suggest that attempting to do so will still lead to a net welfare gain to society. Increasing time lags and uncertainty regarding water quality improvements do decrease the benefits, but the benefits still outweigh the aggregate costs of policy measures. Only in the worst case scenario, combining a long time lag and a high level of outcome uncertainty for the water quality improvement with relatively high costs of policy measures, we are close to a break-even. Hence, we do not find evidence supporting a case for disproportional cost exemption from the WFD target being relevant for the Limfjorden case.

Implementation of the Nitrates Directive (NiD) and its environmental impacts were compared for member states in the northwest of the European Union (Ireland, United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Northern France and Germany). The main sources of data were national reports for the third reporting period for the NiD (2004–2007) and results of the MITERRA-EUROPE model. Implementation of the NiD in the considered member states is fairly comparable regarding restrictions for where and when to apply fertilizer and manure, but very different regarding application limits for N fertilization. Issues of concern and improvement of the implementation of the NiD are accounting for the fertilizer value of nitrogen in manure, and relating application limits for total nitrogen (N) to potential crop yield and N removal. The most significant environmental effect of the implementation of the NiD since 1995 is a major contribution to the decrease of the soil N balance (N surplus), particularly in Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. This decrease is accompanied by a modest decrease of nitrate concentrations since 2000 in fresh surface waters in most countries. This decrease is less prominent for groundwater in view of delayed response of nitrate in deep aquifers. In spite of improved fertilization practices, the southeast of the Netherlands, the Flemish Region and Brittany remain to be regions of major concern in view of a combination of a high nitrogen surplus, high leaching fractions to groundwater and tenacious exceedance of the water quality standards. On average the gross N balance in 2008 for the seven member states in EUROSTAT and in national reports was about 20 kgNha-1 yr-1 lower than by MITERRA. The major cause is higher estimates of N removal in national reports which can amount to more than 50 kgNha-1 yr-1. Differences between procedures in member states to assess nitrogen balances and water quality and a lack of cross-boundary policy evaluations are handicaps when benchmarking the effectiveness of the NiD. This provides a challenge for the European Commission and its member states, as the NiD remains an important piece of legislation for protecting drinking water quality in regions with many private or small public production facilities and controlling aquatic eutrophication from agricultural sources.