EFFECT aims to develop more effective agri-environmental programmes by developing new forms of contracts between farmers and agri-environmental agencies or other actors. It does this through studying the institutional context in which contracts are developed and negotiated, the environmental and economic efficiency of alternative contract forms and farmers’ motivation and incentives to participate.
The activities undertaken as part of the project include:
• synthesis of evidence and lessons from past and ongoing initiatives, contract arrangements and collaboration forms.
• co-development of new contract arrangements via a multi-actor process, to overcome barriers to adoption of more effective programmes.
• identification of institutional and organizational enablers and barriers for uptake of new forms of contracts in different policy and implementation contexts.
• identification of key ecological and economic features that co-determine whether contracts fostering environmentally friendly practices or environmental outcomes are most effective.
• development of contract mechanisms that foster uptake and coordination amongst farmers and identify ecological, economic, social and institutional factors making individual or collective contracts more effective.
• testing of innovative contractual arrangements among nine selected European contract innovation cases.
These actions are intended to support the creation of a set of innovative agri-environmental contract frameworks likely to be effective in different European agri-environmental contexts.
