Dieses Open-Access-Buch bietet Einblicke in die Bandbreite agrar- und regional-soziologischer Forschung und eng verwandter Disziplinen in Österreich. Es widmet sich den vielfältigen Lebensrealitäten von Akteurinnen und Akteuren in ländlichen, insbesondere alpinen Regionen. Die Beiträge beleuchten Themen wie Wandlungsprozesse und Zukunftsperspektiven, Sozialkapital und Lebensqualität, Werthaltungen und Konsumpräferenzen sowie Landnutzung und Familienlandwirtschaft.
Organic farming practices have environmental benefits compared to conventional ones. Their adoption is the result of a complex interaction of intrinsic attitudes of farmers, their profit expectations and farm policy incentives. We use an agricultural sector model and develop an extended version of the Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) method to differentiate organic farming from other management practices. Austria is chosen for the case study because 8 percent of its farmland are managed organically, and detailed data on alternative management practices are available. The results suggest that the agricultural policy reforms have made organic farming more attractive to farmers.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was fundamentally reformed in 2003. From 2005 on, farmers will receive decoupled income support payments instead of production premiums if basic standards for environment, food safety, animal health and welfare are met. Farmers will likely adjust production and management practices to the new policy framework. We describe how this reform fits into the EU strategy of making agricultural production more environmentally friendly by concentrating on financial aspects. Using an agricultural sector model for Austria, we show that the reform will further decrease agricultural outputs, reduce farm inputs, lessen nitrogen surpluses and make environmentally friendly management practices more attractive for farmers.
TTRIOPOL studies the role of domestic bioenergy potentials for agriculture, the wider economy and international trade for Austria. In particular, agricultural biomass pro-duction can contribute to significant shares of energy provision in Austria. A detailed scenario is developed to explore the opportunities and challenges of enhanced domestic biomass production based on short rotation forestry (SRF) for heat supply which is currently among the most competitive technologies. To that end, TRIOPOL establishes a model linkage between a sectoral supply-model for Austrian agriculture and a national small open economy general equilibrium model. Model results show that a biomass premium of 65 € per ton dry matter is required to support 250,000 ha of SRF on cropland in Austria by 2020. The thus provided bioheat covers some 33 petajoule (PJ) heat energy demand in Austria; taking into account the likely rising of energy prices by 2020, this number rises to 47 PJ. Substantial land use changes may also be compensated by increases in land use intensity and as well as changes in imports and exports. Scenario results suggest that domestic food production of non-meat commodities falls by 1.3%. The sector meat products profits from the high competitiveness of Austrian livestock production and responds by a slight increase in net exports. The results of the quantitative analysis shall support the scientific and political debate on securing food and energy supply as well as economic development goals.
Direct payments are the most important expenditure of the Common Agricultural Policy. They are mostly in the form of decoupled direct payments which are intended to be allocatively neutral. Increasing volumes of such transfers imply that distributive aspects of CAP expenditures become more important. This paper looks at this issue by calculating various measures of concentration based on statistics on recipients of direct payments covering the period of 2000 to 2006. The findings are evaluated in the context of the objectives of the CAP and the review of the financial framework, due to be discussed in late 2008.
Subsidies linked to production have been classified to be environmentally harmful by OECD. A core element of the EU 2003 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform is to decouple income support from production. This paper estimates the environmental consequences of this policy reform. An agricultural sector model using a modified version of the positive mathematical programming method depicts the complex natural, structural, and political relationships of Austrian farming. Changes in management measures can be analyzed with respect to their environmental effects by using appropriate indicators. Simulation results show that the 2003 CAP reform will not only reduce average cost of production, but may also improve environmental conditions regarding soil, water, and greenhouse gases. Thus, this reform is likely to bring about outcomes which the previous CAP-reform (Agenda 2000) promised, but did not deliver.
Die Etablierung des Westlichen Maiswurzelbohrers (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera) stellt eine zentrale Herausforderung für die österreichische Maisproduktion dar. Eine aktive Regulierung ist unerlässlich, um weitere Schäden zu verhindern bzw. zu reduzieren. Die Umsetzung bzw. Nicht-Umsetzung von einzelbetrieblichen Maßnahmen, z.B. Fruchtfolgen oder Pestizidanwendungen, hat insbesondere in kleinstrukturierten österreichischen Agrarlandschaften Auswirkungen auf benachbarte Betriebe. Die Anwendung von Maßnahmen auf regionaler Ebene in Zusammenhang mit dem WMB, z.B. die Koordination von Fruchtfolgen oder Pestizidanwendungen, ist bisher gering. Um entsprechende Maßnahmen – auf einzelbetrieblicher sowie regionaler Ebene – aus Sicht der Beratung und Politik zu unterstützen, bedarf es der Kenntnis von Wahrnehmungen und Erfahrungen betroffener LandwirtInnen. Im Herbst 2017 wurden 23 leitfadengestützte Interviews mit betroffenen LandwirtInnen in der Projektregion der ARGE Innobrotics (Burgenland, Kärnten, Steiermark) geführt. Die Auswertung der Interviews erfolgte mit Hilfe einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Anwendung von Maßnahmen zur Regulierung des WMB von zahlreichen Faktoren beeinflusst wird, darunter den persönlichen Kenntnissen und betrieblichen Gegebenheiten, der wahrgenommenen Wirksamkeit, dem Betriebstyp oder der landwirtschaftlichen Struktur. Weiters spielen äußere Rahmenbedingungen, wie rechtliche Vorschriften, klimatische Bedingungen, ökonomische Aspekte oder das wahrgenommene Verständnis der Gesellschaft gegenüber den Maßnahmen eine wichtige Rolle. Zudem beeinflussen persönliche Erfahrungen und Einstellungen, wie das wahrgenommene Schadensausmaß oder wahrgenommene Umweltauswirkungen von Pestizidanwendungen, die Umsetzung. Die Notwendigkeit der aktiven WMB-Regulierung wird von allen befragten LandwirtInnen erkannt, die Wahl der Maßnahmenkombinationen ist aber heterogen. Maßnahmenvorschläge zur Regulierung auf regionaler Ebene werden positiv beurteilt. Eine Umsetzung können sich viele befragte LandwirtInnen jedoch nicht vorstellen, wenngleich einzelne von Planungen bzw. auch erfolgreichen Umsetzungen auf regionaler Ebene berichten.
Ambitious renewable energy targets have been implemented in the EU that can only be attained if further measures are taken to boost biomass production for energy uses on agricultural land. The aim of this discussion paper is to explore consequences for land use and environment if biomass production will be expanded for non-food purposes in Austria. We assess the bio-physical and economic production potentials of energy crops and explore the trade-offs between bioenergy and food production on arable lands in Austria. In a policy experiment, we analyze how costly it is to expand domestic non-food biomass production by employing an integrated modeling framework using an elaborated set of bio-physical and economic data. The results indicate that an expansion of biomass production for first and second generation biofuels would imply significant adjustment costs for the agricultural sector. Furthermore, increasing feedstock production would have significant impacts on land use and fertilizer intensity levels. The economic analysis considers differences of regions and site conditions, which lead to higher opportunity costs, and hence, higher feedstock costs as assumed in previous studies. Subsidizing domestic biomass production likely leads to rising regional food and feed prices as well as factor prices (e.g. land renting) in a land constrained economy.
The phasing-out of the EU milk quota regime in 2015 challenges the Austrian milk sector and calls for its re-organization. Private raw milk management systems and contracts between milk producers and milk processors and traders will replace the national milk quota regime. The aim of the study is to provide information to political and private agents on future contracts and the re-organization of the dairy sector. Consequently, we use qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys to reveal the perspectives, preferences, and aims of dairy CEOs and milk producers in Austria. The surveys follow a case study approach. We have selected eight dairies based on distinct criteria to conduct face to face interviews as well as a standard questionnaire procedure. Furthermore, a stratified sample of 1,500 corresponding milk producers has been drawn to perform a standard questionnaire procedure as well. A main part of the surveys focuses on the design of contracts between dairies and milk producers. Consequently, the study reveals common and distinct interests between the dairies' CEOs and milk producers. Comparisons to two Austrian and one German study provide an overview on the development of milk producer perspectives over time and the specificities of the Austrian milk sector. The results reveal a rather heterogeneous milk sector with respect to the perspectives, preferences, and aims among as well as between the groups of milk producers and dairies' CEOs. Although some accordance is given with some issues such as contract duration and termination clauses, other issues such as the regulation of raw milk deliveries indicate diverging interests between dairies and milk producers
