Measuring regional diversification of environmental externalities in agriculture and the effectiveness of their reduction by EU agri-environmental programs in Poland

Abstract

The problem of externalities is an important aspect of contemporary discussion about the directions of agricultural development and agricultural policy. Nonetheless measuring agri-environmental externalities is a difficult task and rarely undertaken in scientific research. In our research, we have constructed a synthetic indicator that allows measuring agri-environmental externalities at the regional level, taking into account both positive and negative effects at the same time. We also studied the extent to which our synthetic indicator can be used to inform about the effectiveness of subsidies paid to farmers in the European Union under agri-environmental programs, in reduction of externalities generated by agriculture. We concluded that the use of subsidies under agri-environmental programs has a positive impact on reducing externalities generated by agricultural production, measured by our indicator.