Assessing the Functionality of Common Agricultural Policy Payment Instruments in Mixed Forestry-Farming Regions

The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been broadened over recent decades in response to evolving challenges faced by the EU and its farmers. It now claims to support not only food security and farmers’ incomes, but also transitioning to a green economy, conservation of biodiversity and climate action. We have evaluated to what extent four main types of CAP payment instruments form a cohesive and effective package for achieving multiple policy goals in mixed forestry-farming regions (skogsbyggder); regions that are crucial for the provisioning of public goods in Sweden. We find that these payments collectively are vital for achieving policy goals for agriculture in these regions, but the complex mix of instruments hides the potential for achieving better trade-offs among policy goals. Instead of comprising a coherent response to policy goals, the current mix of instruments represents a patchwork of responses to potentially conflicting goals. Our study indicates that the CAP can be made more effective in mixed forestry-farming farming regions through better coordination of its main payment instruments given its multiple goals.