Research Reports
Development of Agri-Environmental Indicators to Meet Discussions on Development of OECD Environmental Indicators
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AuthorKim, Changgil
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Publication Date2006.11.01
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Original
Agriculture may positively or negatively affect environments depending on management of production activities. Agri-Environmental Indicators (AEIs) are the representative values calculated with the given criteria for those areas selected to determine the effects of agriculture on environment and vice versa. The OECD Secretariat has been promoting development of agri-environmental indicators by organizing a Joint Working Party in 1993 and will announce a comprehensive report in the middle of 2007.
This study is intended to analyze trends of AEI development by OECD JWP and to present policy linkage and subjects to meet future development of AEIs following announcement of the comprehensive report of AEI development.
The study is largely organized into 6 chapters. The introduction overviews the issues raised, objectives of study and review of previous studies. Chapter 2 covers the development process of OECD AEIs, concept and configuration of prior AEIs, trends of JWP discussion in the OECD Agri-Environmental Policy Committee, and contents of the AEI comprehensive report. Chapter 3 presents comparative analysis of agri-environmental status of OECD members. The target indicators include the 8 key indicators: contextual indicator, nutrient balance, agricultural pesticide use and risk, energy indicator, soil indicator, water use, water quality, atmosphere and weather change, and biological diversity. Chapter 4 presents comparison of environmental performance with changes in circumstances and examples of assessment on agri-environmental policy using nutrient balance indicator in regard to political utilization of AEIs. In addition, this chapter reviews Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) and Stylized Agri-environmental Policy Impact Model (SAPIM) under discussion in OECD as a policy assessment model using AEIs. Besides, the STONE model of Netherlands and IRENA (Indicator Reporting on the Integration of Environmental Concerns into Agricultural Policy) of EU are covered in this chapter. Chapter 5 presents the 5 subjects for AEI development: development of indicators suitable for the domestic agricultural conditions; development of persuasive indicators appropriate for multi functions; development of composite indicators regarding AEIs; development of indicators to meet user's needs and distribution of information; and establishment of indicator development network between experts and persons responsible for the policy. Finally, Chapter 6 briefs summary and conclusion.
As environmental problems may largely differ by countries and by regions, there might be a limitation in integration of the indicators and comparative analysis between countries using AEIs based on average values. However, nutrient indicators for nitrogen and phosphoric acid, number and area of ecological farms, number and area of farms applying nutrient management, and investment to agri-environmental research are regarded as very useful indicators for comparison between countries. Through continual development and update of AEIs, environmental load on the agriculture should be reduced by identifying changes in local agricultural environment and by promoting a step-by-step strategy for areas that require response such as nutrient management. In particular, a warning message to excessive nutrient input was given to Netherlands, an OECD member that marked the highest value of nitrogen balance indicator in 1997. Since then, the Dutch government has achieved a considerable performance by promoting a step-by-step national strategy to reduce surplus nutrient using the AEIs. This may be a good example of clearing the surplus nutrient problem in domestic agricultural environment.
Researchers: Chang-Gil Kim, Tae-Young Kim, Eun-Mi Jeong
E-mail address: changgil@krei.re.kr
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