The Use of the Analytic Network Process for the Analysis of Public Goods Supply from Agricultural Systems: Advances and Challenges Ahead

Abstract

This chapter aims to review and summarize potentials and limitations of the use of the Analytic Network Process in the context of the evaluation of public goods provision from agricultural systems. The chapter provides a description and a step-by-step explanation of the method, and presents insights from three recent papers using the Analytic Network Process to analyze public goods supply from agricultural systems. The papers were selected to show a range of diversified and complementary approaches to the problem and the possibility to integrate stakeholders in the different phases of the evaluation process. The first paper presents a comparison between three rural landscapes and provides a discussion of the role of different economic actors in supplying private- and public-type services. The second paper presents an integrated approach to support the policy-making aimed at a more efficient provision of public goods from a specific farming system. The third paper presents a farm level assessment of multifunctional performance considering a range of different farming practices and techniques. These studies provide evidence of the usefulness of the method to support policy-making and understand the relation between farmers’ decision-making and the provision of public goods. The results are also discussed, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the method in this type of analysis as well as pathways for methodological refinements and integration possibilities with other techniques with a particular attention toward the ex-ante and ex-post participation of stakeholders.