Developing payment-by-results approaches for agri-environment schemes: Experience from an arable trial in England

There is increasing interest in the potential for payment-by-results approaches to be adopted more widely in agrienvironment schemes to address some of the limitations of conventional action-based approaches. To date, researchers have almost exclusively applied the approach in grassland farming systems. This paper reports on the results from an English, pure payment-by-results pilot scheme that tested the delivery of two environmental objectives: provision of winter bird food for farmland birds and provision of pollen and nectar resources for pollinating insects in arable farming systems, and incorporated farmer self-assessments. The method employed an assessment of environmental outcomes using an experimental design, recording the number of plants/seed heads per quadrat for specified species and an analysis of farmers' attitudes using a qualitative survey. The results from 15 farms revealed improved environmental performance compared to similar measures implemented under conventional agri-environment schemes. The analysis also revealed a high correlation of farmer self-assessment of results with expert assessments. Survey findings also identified farmers' views on the advantages (flexibility and freedom, fairness) and disadvantages (risk of failure and non-payment) of such an approach.

Automated summary

Research on a pure payment-by-results pilot scheme in England shows that this approach leads to improved environmental performance compared to conventional agri-environment schemes, as evidenced by assessments from both farmers and experts. The survey also sheds light on farmers' perspectives on the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, with concerns about the risk of failure and non-payment balanced by the flexibility and fairness it offers.