IEEP newsletter - spring 2010
CAPRI model helps to assess CAP impacts
Understanding the likely economic, social and environmental consequences of changes in agricultural and rural development policies is a critical, yet complex, aspect of the policy development process. While economic models have been used for some time to predict the effects of changes in market support payments on the dynamics of global trade, production activity, producer and consumer prices, land use and so on, no EU-wide models exist to assess the likely effects of rural development policy in the EU-27. Finding ways of doing this is becoming more important as the economic, social and environmental impacts of rural development policy in rural areas have become more significant over time.
One of the strengths of rural development policy is the range of measures that are available, and the flexibility given to Member States to choose how they are implemented to meet local needs and priorities. However, this flexibility means that different measures can be targeted at different farm types and promote different activities in different Member States and regions. Representing this variation is a particular challenge for economic modelling.
IEEP is involved in an EU-funded 7th Framework Programme project, CAPRI-RD, to explore the possibility of extending the Common Agricultural Policy Regional Impact (CAPRI) model to incorporate rural development measures. To do this CAPRI is being integrated with a layer of multi-sectoral regional models to generate a regional analysis of the impacts of different rural development measures across all sectors of the rural economy using a range of economic, social and environmental indicators.
The efficacy of the model will be tested by using it to model a range of future CAP scenarios, as agreed with DG Agriculture. In the first instance, to inform thinking on the post 2013 structure of the CAP, the model will be used to assess the economic, social and environmental impacts of different options for the distribution of Pillar 1 direct payments in the EU-27.
Further information can be found at www.agp.uni-bonn.de/agpo/rsrch/capri-rd/summary.htm
Contact: Kaley Hart