CAP-reform and the provision of non-commodity outputs in Brandenburg

This paper presents an attempt to model the response of selected farms to decoupled direct payments and the associated impact on the provision of a defined set of non-commodity outputs (NCO’s) using a combined modelling approach consisting of the AgriPoliS and MODAM models. AgriPoliS focuses on the socio-economic dimension of multifunctionality at the individual farm and regional levels and explicitly models heterogeneous farms (in size, location and efficiency) within a competitive and dynamic environment. The linear-programming model MODAM allows a detailed representation of production processes and their impact on the environmental dimension of multifunctionality at the farm level. We simulate the impact of a uniform area payment and a fully decoupled single farm payment. Our case study region is the district Ostprignitz-Ruppin in Brandenburg. Results show that the decoupling schemes create a trade-off between the NCO’s and that adjustment reactions differ between farms depending on their legal form, size, and production.