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Climate change, soil conservation measures and farm performance in Austria

Julian Zeilinger, Jochen Kantelhardt and Andreas Niedermayr published an article in which they investigate:

(i) which factors influence participation in soil protection measures in the Austrian agri-environmental programme ÖPUL in arable farming regions and

(ii) how participation in these measures affects the operating results of farms in the context of climate change.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1477-9552.12620

Limiting the impact of climate change on agriculture is a major goal of the European Union. This requires the evaluation of farm-level adaptation measures, available within the Common Agricultural Policy. We investigate how the adoption of soil conservation measures by farms in Austrian arable regions affects their economic performance. By applying an endogenous switching regression model to panel data, we find that climatic conditions significantly influence the decision on whether to adopt soil conservation measures. The net revenue of adopters is less sensitive to long-term temperature and precipitation changes than for non-adopters. The measures are profitable for a majority of farms. However, profitability is linked to baseline climatic conditions, with negative effects in cool, wet regions and significantly greater positive effects in warm, dry regions

Graphical representation of average temperatujre and precipitation within the study regions in Austria based on Geoshere Austria (2003-2018)

Graphical representation of average temperatujre and precipitation within the study regions in Austria based on Geoshere Austria (2003-2018)

© Zeilinger, Kantelhart, Niedermayr

Team

ZEILINGER, Julian

DI Julian Zeilinger

Agricultural Economics and Data Management
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1030 Wien
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