Evaluation is firmly established as part of rural development policymaking in the EU. A requirement to evaluate is set out in the Rural Development Regulation, the legal basis for spending EU funds on agreed aspects of rural development, which also stipulates the process to be used. Member...

Demonstrating the impact of Knowledge Transfer activities and advisory services aimed at farmers is important to justify their use in the achievement of policy goals and in the spending of public funds. Experience gained in evaluating Farming Connect in Wales, the programme delivering these...

The aim of the study was to review the policy instruments under the framework of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), 2007-13, by: • reviewing intervention rationales and instruments and their use against the objectives, priorities and key actions in the EU Strategic...

Substantial structural change is taking place in EU agriculture. Average farm size is increasing and labour is continuing to move out of the sector. Slow growth in food demand and the effects of technological change on supply are likely to exert downward pressure on real agricultural prices....

Structural policy in the EU is ambiguous in its aims and contains conflicting elements. Interventions to ease change are combined with defensive measures that support income and discourage some aspects of adjustment. Structural change is a complex process and the number of farms is an incomplete...

The social attributes that agriculture is assumed to provide in its multifunctional role are analysed. Links with structural characteristics are examined and questions raised on the extent to which these are dependent on sustaining the present structure of EU agriculture. The nature of an...

Hitherto the basic units of agricultural statistics have been fictional (the holding and the Local KAU). The case is made that for many purposes basing economic statistics on the institutional units that undertake production - household-firms and corporations - would bring substantial advantages...

The purpose of this paper is to stimulate discussion on the way that economists, statisticians and analysts treat the wealth of agricultural households and changes in that wealth not arising from production. The concept of "economic status" is revisited and the implications of using it when...

Policies involving agriculture require information about production of commodities and about the firms that produce them. Understanding the behaviour of the family-firm is central to many issues and increasingly relevant as objectives evolve and the pluriactive nature of farm households is...