Agricultural adjustment: adoption of and adaptation to policy reform measures by large-scale commercial farmers

The 1992 reform of the European Unionʹs Common Agricultural Policy included an ‘Accompanying Measure’ that sought to co-ordinate the agri-environmental programmes of member states alongside initially voluntary and later compulsory set-aside measures designed to restrain agricultural production. These reforms have been seen as signalling a transition from a productivist to post-productivist philosophy in agricultural policy, although survey evidence is less than conclusive that this change of direction has permeated through the industry at the grassroots level. This paper reports on results from a farmer survey that shows contrasting responses according to whether policy measures are compulsory or voluntary. Commercial farmers are more willing to volunteer participation in optional agri-environmental schemes, where they feel they have greater control over its effects on farming operations but respond by adapting their implementation of compulsory set-aside to suit their own agricultural production purposes. Such a response casts considerable doubt over whether large-scale commercial farmers can be regarded as having made a transition to post-productivism.