sustainable agriculture within the baltic …...4 beras international network 5 sustainable...

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Report by Jessica Spijkers, Lina Isacs and Thomas Hahnat Stockholm Resilience Centre

Corresponding author: [email protected]

Sustainable agriculture within the

Baltic Sea Region: Do policy measures respond

to policy objectives?



Sustainable agriculture within the

Baltic Sea Region:agriculture within the

Baltic Sea Region:agriculture within the

Do policy measures respond to policy objectives?

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BERAS International Network

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Preface

Resilience of our ecosystems is at stakeDespite various measures the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea is not decreasing and the resilience of multiple ecosystems is at stake. In this situation business as usual is not an option. New approaches are needed creating a safe operating space within the environmental boundaries. BERAS develops and implements practical examples where innovation and en-trepreneurship from a multi sectorial engagement fl ows into realistic fully integrated ecologi-cal alternatives for the whole food chain from farmer to consumer.

BERAS - background and main conceptsThe BERAS concepts have been developed through two transnational projects part-fi nanced by the European Union and Norway (the Baltic Sea Region Programme), BERAS (2003 – 2006) and BERAS Implementation (2010 – 2013). It is a common effort from the partnership from nine countries around the Baltic Sea (Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland), Russia and Norway and includes national and local authorities, universities and research institutes, advisory services, ecological and envi-ronmental NGOs, farmers’ organizations, food chain actors and fi nance institutions.

The concept of Ecological Recycling Agriculture (ERA) is based on many years of research and studies on how organic farms can be organized to be truly sustainable and environment-friendly and has demonstrated its potential related to reduction of nutrient leakage from the farm, soil carbon sequestration/climate effect, biodiversity and increased soil fertility.

BERAS has also successfully started the implementation of fully integrated full scale examples of regional Sustainable Food Societies (SFS) in all countries in the Baltic Sea Region. The consumer engagement concept Diet for a Clean Baltic offers a sustainable lifestyle with consumption of enough and good food without threatening the environment of the Baltic Sea or the planetary boundaries.

BERAS futureFollowing the conclusion of EU project BERAS Implementation in 2013 a Network Agreement has been concluded to further develop BERAS and secure the continuation of the work in the Baltic Sea Region and to share our competence and building alliances with initiatives in other parts of the world.

Jostein HertwigAttorney at Law

Head of BERAS Secretariat

Artur GranstedtAgr. Dr.

Project Coordinator

Preface

the Baltic Sea Region and to share our competence and building alliances with initiatives in other parts of the world.the Baltic Sea Region and to share our competence and building alliances with initiatives in

Jostein HertwigJostein HertwigJostein HertwigAttorney at LawAttorney at LawAttorney at Law

Head of BERAS SecretariatHead of BERAS SecretariatHead of BERAS Secretariat

Artur GranstedtArtur GranstedtArtur GranstedtAgr. Dr.Agr. Dr.Agr. Dr.

Project CoordinatorProject CoordinatorProject Coordinator

BERAS International NetworkSWEDEN Ekologiska lantbrukarna,www.ekolantbruk.se Biodynamic Research Institute, www.jdb.se/sbfi

Södertälje municipality, www.sodertalje.se

Saltå kvarn,www.saltakvarn.se

Ekobanken,www.ekobanken.se

Swedish Rural Economy and Agricultural societies, Gotland: www.hush.se/i Kalmar: www.hush.se/h

FINLAND MTT Agrifood Research www.mtt.fi

NORWAYUniversitetet i Nordland, www.uin.no

Fylkesmannen i Oslo og Ak-ershus, www.fylkesmannen.no/Oslo-og-Akershus

ESTONIAEstonian University of Life Sciences, www.emu.ee

Estonian Organic Farming Foundation (EOFF), www.maheklubi.ee

LATVIALatvian Rural Advisory and Training Centre, www.llkc.lv

LITHUANIAAleksandras Stulginskis Universitywww.lzuu.lt/pradzia/lt

Baltic Foundation HPI, www.heifer.lt; www.heifer.org

Kaunas District Municipality, www.krs.lt

POLAND Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation – National Research Institute, www.iung.pulawy.pl

Kujawsko-Pomorski Agricultural Advisory Centre in Minikowo, www.kpodr.pl

Polish Ecological Club in Krakow, City of Gliwice Chapter, www.pkegliwice.pl

Pomeranian AgriculturalAdvisory Center in Gdańsk, www.podr.pl

GERMANYLeibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, www.zalf.de

DENMARKThe Danish Ecological Council, www.ecocouncil.dk

Økologisk rådgivning, www.ecoadvice.dk

BELARUSInternational Public Association of Animal Breeders “East-West”

RUSSIAThe Association on Assistance of Field Research & Development Rural Territories, AAFRDRT

www.beras.eu

BERAS Initiatives have started in the Caribbean, Dominican Republic and Haiti, and in India. So far more than ten organisations have joined the network in each location.

Dr. César E. López, [email protected]

Dr. K. [email protected]

India

BERAS InternationalBuilding Ecological Recycling Agriculture and Societies

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BERAS International Network

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Sustainable agriculture within the Baltic Sea Region: Do policy measures respond to policy objectives

Report by Jessica Spijkers, Lina Isacs and Thomas Hahn

This report is based on a stakeholder dialogue held in Stockholm on the 27 September 2012. 40 experts from eight countries participated. Most participants belonged to the network formed around an EU financed research project called Beras, representing farmers, researchers, policy-makers and NGOs. This report does not summarize the whole stakeholder dialogue but focuses on the questionnaire that the participants completed at the end of this dialogue. The aim of the questionnaire was to assess the opinion of these experts on sustainable agriculture in general and how to reduce nutrients runoff to the Baltic Sea in particular.

We want to thank Artur Granstedt and Sofie Gerber at Beras for good collaboration and the Swedish Institute and Stockholm Resilience Centre for financial support. A special thanks to Jessica Spijkers who completed the writing of this report.

Lina Isacs Thomas Hahn

Stockholm Resilience Centre

Sustainable agriculture within the Baltic Sea Region: Do policy measures

respond to policy objectives?

Foreword



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Report by Jessica Spijkers, Lina Isacs and Thomas Hahn 7



Executive summary

The Baltic Sea is dying. Oxygen-free bottom zones are increasing despite the binding targets of Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorous (P) reduction in the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP). Nutrient runoff from agriculture is the most important source of this eutrophication. According to the EU, sustainable agriculture in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) concerns several political objectives, including reducing eutrophication by nutrient abatement measures, sustain economic viability of farms and benefit society as a whole. This report synthesizes policy and management measures for sustainable agriculture in the BSR that have been discussed in the scientific literature and subsequently assess how those measures meet key policy objectives and stakeholder preferences. The aim of this report is to (a) assess how different measures respond to the various policy objectives, (b) identify synergies and tradeoffs, i.e. whether a measure targeting one policy objective counteracts or contributes to other policy objectives, and (c) detect knowledge gaps. A multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is used as an overarching framework for this

assessment, where a stakeholder dialogue and questionnaire are used for valuation and ranking of objectives and related policies. Representatives from four stakeholder groups participated in the dialogue/workshop: researchers, policy makers, farmers, and civil society. The focus of the stakeholder dialogue (“workshop”) and of the scientific literature review was the role of agriculture for saving the Baltic Sea.

First, we find that all stakeholder groups gave more or less the same ranking to the five presented objectives, where ‘sustainable agriculture’ was considered most important, followed by ‘BSAP measures of N and P reductions’, ‘profitable agriculture’, ‘increased food production’ and ‘low food prices’. Both the stakeholder dialogue and the policy literature review suggest that ‘sustainable agriculture’ could be treated as an overarching political objective, making the three other sub-objectives.

Second, we find that the scientific literature (on the topic the Baltic Sea and agriculture) addresses mainly the effect of different

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The motive for creating this report is set within the context of eutrophication in the Baltic Sea, a challenge that requires “a completely different approach and new tailor-made actions […] to reach the goal of good ecological status” (Jakobsson, 2012, p. 80). Sustainable agriculture has been defined by the European Parliament (2012), as an “integrated system of plant and animal production that will last over the long time, satisfy human food needs, enhance natural resources, use efficiently of non-renewable resources, sustain economic viability of farms and enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole. It is the practice of farming using principles which respect ecology and save natural resources”. We adopt that definition throughout the report. The Baltic Sea faces several environmental problems and is under severe stress as a result of the environmental effects of anthropogenic activities and its special geographical, climatological and oceanographical characteristics (BalticSTERN, 2013). The largest environmental problems are eutrophication caused

by increasing nutrient loads, overfishing, hazardous substances, risk of chemical and oil spills, marine litter and invasive species (BalticSTERN, 2013). In this report, we focus on the role of sustainable agriculture and hence on the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea caused by increased nutrient loads of Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorus (P). Since the 1970s, the Baltic Sea countries have addressed the eutrophication problem through both international cooperation and national environmental policies. The Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), formed 1974, initially relied on voluntary measures. In 2007 the nine countries together with the European Commission signed the Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) aiming at good ecological status by the year 2021. Actions for reducing eutrophication, which is the major challenge for BSAP, shall be implemented by 2016. Around 2000, annual emissions to the Baltic Sea were about 736,720 tonnes N and 36,310 tonnes P. The negotiated agreement, informed by scientific analyses, was to reduce emissions with 133,170 tonnes N (18%) and 15,016 tonnes P (41%) annually

measures on the BSAP targets (N and P reductions) and the cost to reach these targets, which means that ‘profitable agriculture’ is indirectly addressed. The other two sub-objectives are rarely addressed although they are part of political definitions of sustainable agriculture. Hence we have identified a research gap: hitherto, scientific articles on this topic have not taken account of objectives related to harvest levels and low food prices. Most attention seems to be directed towards the supply-side of sustainable agriculture in the BSR, generally neglecting the demand side.

Third, from the expert stakeholder dialogue we also discern that the stakeholder group proposed several measures that we did not retrieve in the scientific literature (and vice versa). In particular, regulating the intensity of animal production, radical reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and including the whole food chain in the analysis, were identified as key issues by several stakeholders but not found in our scientific literature review. From this we conclude that performing participatory and deliberative policy assessments like MCDA allows for learning processes to take place and for new information to be integrated into the proceeding.

Last, the minimum annual cost for society of achieving the BSAP targets (cost-effective measures including effects on farm profitability and food prices) has been estimated to €4.7 billion (Wulff et al. 2014). However, a Swedish municipality, Södertälje, has already made large efforts to transform

agriculture and the whole food chain and achieved, at least partly, all four policy objectives discussed here without additional costs. The secret is an integrated approach including public procurement, low-intensive animal stocking, and adaptation of meals e.g. in schools. Such synergy approaches, discussed at the stakeholder dialogue, can be contrasted to the dominant scientific approach of analysing cost-effectiveness of individual measures on individual policy objectives. Reductionist scientific approaches have a tendency to underestimate society’s adaptive capacity and exaggerate the costs for transformation and thereby contribute to society’s inability to save the Baltic Sea.

1. SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE, EUTROPHICATION AND THE BALTIC SEA

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consideration (such as repercussions on farm income, production levels etc.). Besides, limited financial resources make the task of resource allocation difficult, especially since the countries within the BSR vary structurally in terms of income levels, income distribution, governance and legislative settings, civic involvement, culture and norms (Biermann et al., 2013; European Commission, 2009). When multiple objectives are involved, transparent and multidisciplinary decision support systems are needed that help decision makers process information and work out equitable and economically efficient solutions (Gamper et al., 2006). Acknowledging this, the aim of this report is to synthesize policy and management measures for sustainable agriculture in the BSR discussed in scientific literature and to use a comprehensive framework for assessing how those measures meet multiple criteria of key policy objectives.

from the levels around 2000 (Swedish Board of Agriculture, 2008, p. 17). The distribution of these reductions was preliminary agreed on in 2007 and confirmed by HELCOM 2010 (Table 1).Table 1. Agreed annual reduction targets per country (HELCOM 2007, p. 9).

Country Phosphorous (tonnes/year)

Nitrogen (tonnes/year)

Denmark 16 17,210Estonia 220 900Finland 150 1,200Germany 240 5,620Latvia 300 2,560Lithuania 880 11,750Poland 8,760 62,400Russia 2,500 6,970Sweden 290 20,780Transboundary (Belarus)

1,660 3,780

Sum 15,016 133,170

The 2007 targets of the BSAP (Table 1) have been approved by all nine HELCOM member countries while the revised targets from October 2013 have not yet been approved by all (Wulff et al., 2014). The targets may be very difficult to reach, for example the measures suggested by Swedish authorities have been estimated to reduce (annually) nitrogen by 7,000 tonnes and phosphorous by 61 tonnes only. In fact, the targets for Sweden would not be reached even if most agriculture in Southern Sweden was closed down (Swedish Board of Agriculture, 2008, p. 18).

The Baltic Sea has changed from an oligotrophic clear-water sea into a eutrophic marine environment during the 1990s, a so called regime shift (Elofsson, 2010; Larsson & Granstedt, 2010). As described by Larsson & Granstedt (2010, p. 1943), “The visible part of the eutrophication is the increase in algae. A more serious effect is the decrease in dissolved oxygen and the spreading of dead zones in coastal marine waters”. It is especially land-based sources, particularly agriculture, that cause excessive N and P loads, which drive the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010; HELCOM, 2014). Farm nutrient balance studies conducted in Sweden and Finland, suggest that the main reason for the increased load of N and P from agriculture to the Baltic Sea is the specialization of agriculture with its separation of crop and animal production (Granstedt, 2000). A sustainable kind of agriculture, one that entails a reformed agricultural sector and advocates environmental considerations alongside practical measures that contribute to economic and social sustainability, can limit environmental degradation and combat the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea (CBSS, 2010).

However, even if the need for sustainably managed farming is recognized, making comprehensible decisions for sustainable agriculture in the BSR entails major complexities for final decision makers, as they have to take multiple factors into account when working to improve governance and meet policy objectives. The issue in question implicates taking a variety of criteria into

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Board of Agriculture has discussed 64 alternative measures for reducing eutrophication (Jordbruksverket, 2008). Considering the huge set of alternative measures, we could not use the stakeholder dialogue to score the performance of each existing measure. Instead we did a scientific review to gain information on the performance of each measure. By synthesizing this information we are able to discuss the effects of various measures on eutrophication and other aspects of sustainable agriculture within the BSR. From this potential synergies and trade-offs could be identified. The key policy and management measures addressed in the scientific literature were compared to the ones suggested by the stakeholders to identify possible inconsistencies and data gaps. A method more traditionally utilized for decision support is cost-benefit analysis (CBA), a tool in which all effects of a policy measure or project is expressed in monetary terms using either market prices or non-market valuation methods (Gamper et al., 2006). Although both frameworks have their strengths and drawbacks, we find the MCDA more appropriate in this case. An MCDA allows for a more disaggregated analysis, assessing the effects of various measures on different policy objectives without attaching monetary values to all effects. Besides, the iterative process of MCDA allows for learning processes to take place and can integrate new information into the decision process (Buchholz et al. 2007).

2.2 LITERATURE REVIEWSAs mentioned in the previous section, we carry out a dual literature review. Firstly, we perform a literature review of international, EU-level and national policy documents concerning agriculture and the Baltic Sea, retrieved through the use of Google and Google Scholar, in order to identify existing policy objectives and criteria. This will allow us to create a ‘value tree’, i.e. a visual representation of how an overall objective can be broken up into several sub-goals which in turn is subdivided into criteria, the latter being a level of detail one can quantify (Belton & Stewart, 2002).

Secondly, after determining sub-objectives through the policy review, we conduct a scientific literature review on policy and management measures that target the role of sustainable agriculture for a healthy Baltic Sea. The purpose is to examine to what extent this scientific literature assess or pay attention to effects that can be attributable to the different sub-objectives, especially others than the objective concerning reduced nutrients runoff. For this literature review we used the homepages of EU-financed research programs as well as Google Scholar, where we searched for scientific papers targeting the Baltic Sea, eutrophication, and agriculture, and subsequently examined them for their effects on the other sub-objectives. The results were synthesized and organized to fit the sub-objectives and criteria of our value tree.

2. METHODOLOGY

2.1 MULTI CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS (MCDA)As an overarching research framework, we utilize the Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA)1, which is a decision support tool in which effects of different measures are evaluated and ranked in a transparent and participatory way. Along with different forms of stakeholder involvement, the key components of an MCDA are the set of criteria against which alternative measures are to be evaluated, the scores which define the performance of the measures with respect to the criteria, and the weights which reflect the trade-offs decision makers would be willing to accept between levels of performance on different criteria (Belton, 2011). Hence, the increase in performance on criterion A that would compensate for a unit decrease in the scores of a measure’s performance on criterion B, is often referred to as the ‘relative importance’ of criteria. MCDAs have been conducted for diverse issues using a diversity of methods. For example Joubert et al. (1997) did a comparison of MCDA and cost-benefit analysis on Fynbos (fine bush) vegetation and the supply of water, Buchholz et al. (2007) used the Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) for modelling a bioenergy system, while Swedish EPA (2009) treated remediation of

1 In short often called Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA)

contaminated land in an MCDA framework adapted to sustainability assessment. In this report we utilize the MCDA framework with a low degree of aggregation to assess the role of sustainable agriculture for a healthy Baltic Sea. Reducing eutrophication is of course the main role, but measures to achieve this may have repercussions on other aspects of sustainable agriculture. Our methods are listed below.

1) Literature review of policy documents for identifying different objectives and criteria for the topic agriculture in the BSR

2) Stakeholder dialogue for ranking those objectives

3) Stakeholder dialogue for suggesting key policy and management measures

4) Scientific literature review for identifying existing research on policy and management measures

5) Synthesis of the performance of the measures, identified in the scientific literature, with respect to the sub-objectives and criteria

6) Analysis of inconsistencies and data gaps

A large amount of policy and management measures for sustainable agriculture and the Baltic Sea have been discussed in both policy and scientific documents, almost exclusively focussing on reducing eutrophication. For example, the Swedish

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3.1 IDENTIFIED OBJECTIVE AND SUB-OBJECTIVES IN THE LITERATUREThe review of policy documents and reports spans from the international level (i.e. UNEP’s IAASTD) to the EU-level (i.e. the CAP and the EU strategy for the BSR) and the BSR-level (i.e. HELCOM). Below we present some important excerpts representing the data used for identifying relevant policy objectives, where underlined are key words of the sub-objectives as finally expressed in our value tree (Figure 1).

3.1.1 International level: UNEP - International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)The IAASTD is an international effort initiated by the World Bank that evaluated the relevance, quality and effectiveness of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology (AKST), and the effectiveness of public and private sector policies and institutional arrangements. The results and conclusions of the project were reviewed

and ratified, involving 110 countries, including Sweden, Poland and Finland, during the Intergovernmental Plenary Meeting in 2008.

“The main challenge of AKST is to increase the productivity of agriculture in a sustainable manner. AKST must address the needs of small-scale farms in diverse ecosystems and create realistic opportunities for their development where the potential for improved area productivity is low and where climate change may have its most adverse consequences” (IAASTD, 2009, p. 2).

A powerful tool for meeting development and sustainability goals resides in empowering farmers to innovatively manage soils, water, biological resources, pests, disease vectors, genetic diversity, and conserve natural resources in a culturally appropriate manner (…)The suite of options to increase domestic farm gate prices for small-scale farmers includes fiscal and

2.3 STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUEWe conduct an expert stakeholder dialogue to rank the various policy objectives emphasized in policy documents. The stakeholder dialogue gives us the opportunity to test the validity of framing sustainable agriculture as an overarching objective, which it is according to the review of policy documents. Moreover, by asking the stakeholders at the workshop which policy and management measures they propose in the realm of sustainable agriculture and reduced eutrophication, we can assess to what extent these measures are consistent with the measures focused on in the scientific literature.

It is important to note that this expert stakeholder group is by no means representative for all experts on sustainable agriculture in the BSR, let alone representative for all affected stakeholders. However, given a diversified group of experts in terms of country of origin, sector and gender (the specificities of which are explained in part 4.1), this ensured a plurality of opinions regarding the ranking of policy objectives as well as of prioritized policy and management measures.

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scarce resources can be managed more effectively (…)” (European Commission, 2012b, p. 1).

This excerpt suggests that sustainable agriculture is an overarching goal of the contemporary CAP. Furthermore, a great deal of emphasis is put on specific environmental measures, one of which is resource efficiency.

“(…) more competitive, sustainable and resilient agriculture in vibrant rural areas, and thus seek to better align the CAP to Europe 2020, notably in terms of resource efficiency” (European Commission, 2011, p. 8).

b) EU strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR)The EU strategy for the BSR has identified the environmental challenges related to the Baltic Sea as a matter needing urgent attention (European Commission, 2009, 2012a).

“In the Baltic Sea Region agriculture, forestry, and fisheries are important to the economy and sustainable development. Keeping these sectors profitable and competitive is a key factor in securing the future sustainable development of the region” (European Commission, 2012a, p. 41).

The EUSBSR focuses on three overarching pillars, i.e. ‘Connect the Region’, ‘Increase Prosperity’ and ‘Save the Sea’. The latter of those pillars includes specific sub-objectives:

“The overall aim of the EUSBSR ‘Save the Sea’ objective is to achieve good environmental status by 2020 (…) and taking into account the related targets by 2021, as required by the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) (…) This cooperation across agricultural and environment sectors has raised a number of important cross-cutting issues concerning the interaction between agriculture and environment and shown the possibilities offered by focusing on multi-benefit measures. The role of agriculture, not only in reducing nutrient inputs to the sea, but also in providing solutions for ecosystem management and climate change adaptation, should be recognized and supported (…) Eutrophication is a major problem for the Baltic Sea, and for the region’s lakes. It is caused by excessive nutrient inputs (…) Close cooperation with HELCOM (…) is of key importance” (European Commission, 2013, p. 25).

3.1.3 Level of the BSR: HELCOMHELCOM (Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission - Helsinki Commission) is the governing body of the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area, known as the Helsinki Convention. The Contracting Parties are Denmark, Estonia, the European Union, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Sweden. HELCOM is environmentally focused, as it was established to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution through intergovernmental cooperation. The Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) includes four areas of concern: eutrophication (see Table 1),

competition policies; improved access to AKST; novel business approaches; and enhanced political power” (IAASTD, 2009, p. 27).

“Food security. (…)AKST can increase sustainable agricultural production by expanding use of local and formal AKST (…)” (IAASTD, 2009, p. 5).

These excerpts suggest that sustainability and increased production (or productivity) are overarching policy goals, with empowerment and farm income as sub-objectives.

“Environmental sustainability. AKST systems are needed that enhance sustainability while maintaining productivity in ways that protect the natural resource base and ecological provisioning of agricultural systems. Options include improving nutrient, energy, water and land use efficiency (…)” (IAASTD, 2009, p. 5).

This caption emphasises sustainable agriculture as an overarching goal, and more specific environmental concerns for natural resource protection as important sub-goals. Apart from the goals listed above, the IAASTD focuses on ‘human health and nutrition’, ‘equity’ and ‘investments’. Those goals, however, have less relevance for the purpose of this project.

3.1.2 European level: a) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)The objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU are set out in Article 39 of the Treaty of Rome (1957) and this Article has not been changed or modified since then (unlike other parts of the treaty) (Grant, 2010). The objectives are:

1) To increase productivity, by promoting technical progress and ensuring the optimum use of the factors of production, in particular labor.

2) To ensure a fair standard of living for the agricultural Community.

3) To stabilize markets.4) To secure availability of supplies (inputs).5) To provide consumers with food at

reasonable prices.

These original CAP objectives from 1957 correspond to some of the objectives derived from the IAASTD report, i.e. increased production/productivity and profitable agriculture. The original CAP focused more on functioning markets and low food prices. In the EU’s most recent ten-year growth strategy, ‘Europe 2020’, sustainability is placed in the centre of future CAP policies:

“The European Union is developing its Common Agricultural Policy in ways that we believe are good for Europe, and good for the world: towards more sustainability in agriculture (…) The European Union is moving towards sustainable agriculture. This has a pivotal place in both internal and external policies. We are making our agriculture greener, step by step, so that

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compensated for by subsidies and payments from the government/EU or by consumers through higher food prices.

Sub-objective 3: Low food pricesThis sub-objective is closely related to the two previous ones since low food prices often result from high productivity which in turn means high production levels at low cost. Well-functioning (efficient) markets or food price change could be plausible indicators, but we chose the more general term “low production costs” as an indicator because measures to reduce eutrophication are more likely to be evaluated in terms of production costs than consumer prices.

Sub-objective 4: BSAP targets of N/P reductionsThe criteria for ‘BSAP targets of N/P reductions’ are measured by the reductions of N and P reaching the Baltic Sea. These reductions are indicators for eutrophication that “reflect good marine environment” (HELCOM, 2014). This in turn means concentrations of nutrients close to natural levels; clear water; natural level of algal blooms; natural distribution and occurrence of plants and animals; and natural oxygen levels.When we put the identified sub-objectives and criteria together, we attain a value tree (Figure 1).

hazardous substances, biodiversity, and maritime activities (shipping). In the following excerpt taken from the BSAP, ‘sustainable agriculture’ is mentioned as an implicit overarching objective for achieving the overall BSAP goal on eutrophication, with ‘effective nutrient management’ as a sub-objective.

“The overall goal of HELCOM is to have a Baltic Sea unaffected by eutrophication (…) RECOGNISING challenges in addressing diffuse pollution, ACKNOWLEDGING that sustainable agricultural production is a key to the success of reaching Good Environmental Status, and BEING AWARE that modernization and future development of agriculture production in the Baltic Sea region, including effective nutrient management can bring opportunities for better addressing nutrient losses to the sea” (HELCOM, 2013, p. 11).

3.1.4 Identified sub-objectivesThis review of key policy documents justifies using ‘sustainable agriculture’ as an overarching policy objective related to agriculture for the purpose of achieving a healthy Baltic sea. Furthermore, it is apparent that this objective can encompass different sub-objectives. For the purpose of this study we identify the following as the most relevant sub-objectives:

• Increased food production; • Profitable agriculture;• Low food prices; and• BSAP targets of N/P reductions.

3.2 MAPPING OUT THE CRITERIAAs a next step within the MCDA, criteria are to be identified, where criteria are defined as one or several indicators of a specific sub-objective against which measures are to be evaluated. In Table 4, those criteria are

used to assess the impacts of different policy interventions and management practices at farm level.

Sub-objective 1: Increased food productionWhat is the impact of considered policy and management measures on agricultural production levels and food production?2 Measures to reduce nutrient leakage can be expected to reduce harvest levels measured as (yields/ha). Sometimes productivity is the focus and this could either be the same thing as harvest levels per hectare (kg/ha) or relate harvests to other production factors e.g. labour (kg/hours), or to overall costs (SEK/kg).

Sub-objective 2: Profitable agricultureThe criteria we have chosen for measuring the sub-objective ‘profitable agriculture’ is the impact of the analysed measure on farm net income or on the costs for reducing nutrient leakage. This is because, as it turns out, virtually all scientific papers on agriculture and Baltic Sea focus on eutrophication. With ‘farm net income’ we mean the difference between total revenue and total expenses, i.e. gross profits. Impact of a measure on reduction (abatement) costs represents the farmer’s foregone profits when applying a lower quantity of fertilizer than the profit maximizing level (Gren & Scharin, 2007, p. 30). Rather than suggesting a new sub-objective concerning e.g. social costs beside the private cost related farm profitability, we have chosen to include ‘low reduction cost’ as a separate criteria for ‘profitable agriculture’ because reduction costs are partly carried by farmers, for example through operating or investment costs, although some costs may be

2 We are aware that agricultural production level is not equal to food production because about 80% of all agricultural land is used for fodder production.

Figure 1: Value tree where the objective is divided into sub-objectives, which in turn are made measurable by listing their criteria.

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4. STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE

4.1 SURVEYNow that we have identified the sub-objectives and accompanying criteria for sustainable agriculture in the BSR and put them together in the value tree, we examine by use of a survey which of those sub-objectives are weighed as most important by a group of expert stakeholders. We have two motives for performing this stakeholder dialogue. Firstly, performing this survey (see Appendix 1 for the Questionnaire) grants us the opportunity to test the validity of our identified objective and sub-objectives: does this expert stakeholder group actually view sustainable agriculture as being the

main objective? We test for this by asking the expert stakeholder group to weigh all the relevant objectives we identified through the policy literature review, without suggesting that one of them is overarching, i.e. encompasses the other. Secondly, conducting this survey allows us to get a comprehensible picture of how the expert stakeholder group weighs the identified (sub)-objectives relative to one another. This is valuable information as it allows us to assess to what extent the measures discussed in the scientific literature target the sub-objective that is valued as most important by the expert stakeholder group.

Table 2. Country of origin, sector, and gender of participants in the stakeholder dialogue

a) Country of originCountry Denmark Sweden Norway Poland Germany Lithuania Finland Russia Sum

Number of people

2 16 6 2 1 3 3 1 34

b) Sector

SectorFarmer + farmer NGO

ResearcherDecision maker/public official

Environmental NGO/ environmental foundation

Sum

Number of people

6 9 12 7 34

c) GenderGender Male Female SumNumber of people 23 11 34

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agriculture’ as the main objective, supporting or not our conclusions from the policy literature review.

of the 34 workshop participants put the lowest score, 1, on the sub-objective ‘low food prices’3.

In Figure 3 we present the valuation of the objectives per sector, i.e. researchers, farmers/farmer NGOs, decision makers (public officials and politicians), and environmental NGOs and environmental foundations.

In Figure 4 the scoring of the objectives per country is presented, i.e. Sweden, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Norway, Germany, Denmark and Russia. Note that there was only one stakeholder from Germany (a farmer) and one from Russia (a researcher).

3 The total amount of scores is slightly higher than 34 times the total scores per participant (5+4+3+2+1), because some participants assigned 5 to several sub-objectives.

4.2 Interpretation of the survey resultsThe following observations can be done. First of all, when we aggregate the scoring (see Figure 2), the expert stakeholder group marked ‘sustainable agriculture’ as the most important objective for the BSR. This supports our conclusions drawn from the literature review, namely that ‘sustainable agriculture’ is viewed as the overarching objective for agriculture within the BSR. As expressed by one participant (at a Ministry of Agriculture) on this in a follow-up email: “Sustainable agriculture objective covers also N or P management, therefore sustainable agriculture representing broader scope than N P management.” Concerning the sub-objectives, ‘BSAP targets of reducing N and P levels’ within the Baltic Sea was considered to have the second highest relative importance, closely followed by ‘profitable agriculture’. ‘Increased

In order to find out which sub-objective was valued as most important by expert stakeholders, we arranged a workshop in September 2012 (see Appendix 2) and towards the end of this workshop (or stakeholder dialogue) we handed out a survey to the 40 participants. 34 persons replied. Many of the participants belong to the network formed around an EU financed

research project called Beras and they differed in terms of country of origin, gender and occupation (Table 2). The participants were asked to rank the five objectives from most important (5) to least important (1). By not presenting ‘sustainable agriculture’ hierarchically above the four sub-objectives, it was possible to test if the stakeholder group considered ‘sustainable

Figure 2: Aggregated expert stakeholder group weighting of the presented objectives.

Figure 3: Valuation of the presented objectives per sector.

Figure 4: Valuation of the presented objectives by country.

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In this section, we list the policy and management measures, identified in the scientific literature review, that target sustainable agriculture in the BSR. We retrieved those measures by searching for the words ‘sustainable agriculture in the Baltic Sea Region’ in Google Scholar and in the Stockholm university library. All in all, we identified 29 different measures studied within varying fields of research. As it turns out, this literature focuses on eutrophication. Table 4 synthesizes which effects the 29 assessed policy or management measures have on the identified sub-objectives. Several things need to be taken into account when inspecting the listed measures. Firstly, we want to state an initial clarification of what a ‘policy or management measure’ entails. There is a huge scientific debate on how sustainable agriculture can contribute to a healthier Baltic Sea, and policy interventions such as regulations and economic incentives are discussed and evaluated as well as a number of measures associated with specific management practices at farm level (e.g. catch crops, fallow fields etc.) (i.e. Swedish Board of Agriculture 2008 and the Palette by HELCOM 2013). Those management practices can be mandated by regulation or stimulated

by economic incentives or advice and information subsidized by tax money. For that reason, we include both policy interventions and farm management measures in Table 4. Secondly, it has to be noted that different scientific papers have divergent contexts and use different models for analysing a specific measure. As a consequence, the effect on the different sub-objectives may vary across the papers. For example, one paper might list a high cost for a specific intervention, while another paper presents a low cost. This follows from the different methods, assumptions, and contexts of the scientific papers, e.g. some were limited to one country. In the table we have highlighted figures that concern regional or country rather than farm level costs. Other costs might refer to both farm level and wider social units. As described in Section 3.2, two criteria for the sub-objective ‘profitable agriculture’ were picked, assuming increased social costs are partly borne by farmers. To enable transparency, we refer to the original scientific papers.In Appendix 1, we make a brief description of each of the 29 measures in Table 4, as well as an identification of the targeted sub-objectives within the specific excerpts taken from the scientific papers.

food production’ was deemed relatively less important, and the stakeholder group considered the sub-objective of ‘low food prices’ as least important. Secondly, when we compare across sectors, we can derive a few interesting findings. The small sample does not allow for any statistical analysis but we note that even though the participants belong to different sectors there was a strong agreement on how the goals were ranked (Figure 3). Not surprisingly, farmers put relatively more weight on ‘Profitable agriculture’.

Thirdly, when we compare across countries, the results suggest that nationality is not a source of conflicting goals (Figure 4) although the small sample does not allow for far-reaching conclusions on this issue.The value tree results in Table 3 shows the aggregated ranking of the expert stakeholder group, along with their associated criteria for evaluation of different measures.

Table 3. The value tree results with ranked sub-objectives.

Overarching objective

Rank Sub-objectives Criteria

Sustainable agriculture

1. BSAP targets of N/P reductions Reductions of N and P2. Profitable agriculture High farm net income

Low reduction cost3. Increased food production Higher harvest level4. Low food prices Low production cost

5. POLICY AND MANAGEMENT MEASURES ADDRESSED IN SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE

1. 5.1 SYNTHESIS OF PROPOSED POLICY AND MANAGEMENT MEASURES AND THEIR PERFORMANCE WITH RESPECT TO THE SUB-OBJECTIVES AND CRITERIA

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Table 4. Synthesis of measures analysed in the scientific literature. (Empty boxes mean no data available)

Sub-objectives BSAP targets of N/P reductions

Low food prices

Profitable agriculture

Increased food production

References

Criteria Reduction of N & P

Low prod. cost

Farm net income/ low reduction cost

Increased harvest level

Fertilizers reduction (voluntary)

N can be reduced by 50%

Marginal costs 0 to 90 kg–1 N

Gren & Scharin, 2007; Gren, 2008

N- and P-abatement

12-236 SEK/kg N reduction and 114-6604 sek/kg P reduction

Turner et al., 1999

Unspecified reduction effect

Cost in terms of reduced profit

Elofsson, 2011

Focus on reducing inorganic P fertilization, not N

Inorganic P fertilization is relatively cheap

Ahlvik et al., 2014

Phosphorous application supervision/ precision management

Pig farms have Swedish national potential of around 50t reduced P; Dairy farms: 12t reduced P; Potato farms: 18t

Cost for pig farms: between €7 and €11 kg–1; Costs for dairy farms: €50 kg–1; Cost for potato farms: €60 kg−1

Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010

2.4-29.9 kg P/ha in Southern Finland

Likely to increase farm profits

Probability of increased yield

Iho & Laukkanen, 2012


Saves money for farmer

Archambault, 2004

Fertilizer tax Unspecified reduction effect; should be used in combination with a buffer strip subsidy

Lower private profits

Lankoski, 2003

Increased taxation on fertilizers together with a subsidy for changed land use is a cost efficient way to reduce nutrient runoff from agriculture

Conversion to ERA as a whole does not have to result in lower production

Larsson & Granstedt, 2010

Catch crops In Mälar region reduce the amount of N leaching by at most 20%

Seed cost, sowing cost and profit loss → SEK 130 kg–1 N

Decreased harvest

Gren & Scharin, 2007; Gren, 2008

N-abatement Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014


A low cost measure

Turner et al., 1999

For Sweden: 300 N ton emissions reduced

For Sweden: 333 SEK/kg N costs


Restores N in the soil

Short term: decrease the overall income of farmers ↔ long term: save economic resources

Archambault, 2004

Energy crops N fixation Supplements the income of farmers by the sale of energy crops & decreases the need to buy expensive fertilizers

Archambault, 2004

Biogas production

For Sweden: 4t P leakage reduction

For Sweden: cost of €2600/ kg


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Transformation of farmland to forest

For Sweden: 9 t yr–1 P leakage reduction

For Sweden: €220 kg−1yr−1


Grass on turn-spaces

For Sweden: 4.5t P leakage reduction

For Sweden: cost between €50 and €490 kg−1


Grassland Reduce N leakage up to 50%

Frederik Wulff et al., 2007

Uncertain effects on P loading and should thus be avoided

Decreased production and should thus be avoided

Bryhn, 2009

For Sweden: 20% less P

For Sweden: if the P leakage is reduced by 0.1 kg ha–1 the cost is €1000 kg−1yr−1


Fallow fields For Sweden: reduction of P leakage by 0.27 kg ha−1yr−1

Depends on the opportunity cost for not using the land for production


Changed plowing/tillage strategies

Reduced losses of nutrients



Buffer strips/protection zones


Loss in short-run profits

Elofsson, 2011; Gren, 2008

For Sweden: 7.5t yr−1 P reduction

For Sweden: for P between €470 and €4900 kg−1


Buffer strip subsidy

Should be used in combination with a tax on fertilizer; unspecified reduction effect

Lower private profits

Lankoski, 2003

Restoration or construction of wetlands

Mälar region: 15% N retention

Mälar region: opportunity cost is SEK 2,600 ha–1; investment and management costs is a constant marginal costs of SEK 30 kg–1 N abatement

Gren & Scharin, 2007

Unspecified N and P-abatement

Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014

Unspecified N and P-abatement

N-abatement = 12-66 SEK/kg N reduction; P-abatement = 545-18232 SEK/kg P reduction

Turner et al., 1999


Annual costs, based on investment costs

Elofsson, 2011

For Sweden: 4.3t P reduction

For Sweden: Costs for P reduction €120 kg−1



Do not focus on restoring wetlands, because it is a more expensive measure

Ahlvik et al., 2014

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Construction/reconstruction: 100 ton N reduction for 6000 ha; Addition of 6000 ha: 500 ton N reduction



May add to local economy ↔ direct compensation from the government might not make up the costs

Archambault, 2004

Improved regularization of boundaries

For Sweden: 450kg P reduction

For Sweden: €200 for P reduction


Controlled drainage

For Sweden: 2.6t P reduction

For Sweden: between €950 and €4700 kg−1 for P reduction


Lime filter drainage

For Sweden: 1t P reduction

For Sweden: between €685 and €3600 kg−1 for P reduction


Dams as phosphorus traps

For Sweden: 10t P reduction

For Sweden: €102 kg−1 for P reduction


Reductions in cattle, pigs, and poultry

Unspecified N- and P- abatement

More than 30 % reduction of the current herd sizes is likely to incur additional costs

Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014

Unspecified N- and P-abatement

12-236 SEK/kg N reduction and 114-6604 sek/kg P reduction

Turner et al., 1999


Loss in short-run profits


Effect of reduced livestock varies greatly



Loss of income; typically ranging from between €4 (pig for fattening) and €1000 (dairy cow)


Ecological Recycling Agriculture (ERA)

Runoff to the whole Baltic Sea can be reduced by 60% (N) and 100% (P) respectively.

Food basket cost 17% more

The model farms practicing ERA are profitable thanks to existing price premium



Changed spreading time of manure


Increased investment costs


100 ton N reduced



Improved manure handling

Small effects, max 7% reduction of N load, yet does not take into account the long-term effects


Unspecified N reduction effect

Gren, 2008

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5.2 Measures proposed by the expert stakeholder groupIn this section, we list the measures our expert stakeholder group proposed for sustainable agriculture in the BSR during the stakeholder dialogue. In that dialogue, we asked the group to list two of the measures they believe are most important for sustainable agriculture and reducing eutrophication of the Baltic Sea. Apart from collecting knowledge on the support for different

options at hand and open up for suggesting new options, the aim was to compare the views of the stakeholders to the priorities made within research in the field. Table 4 summarises the proposed measures, where the number of answers per type of measure is aggregated in the second column. In column three we have marked whether the measure appears or not in the literature we reviewed.

For Sweden: at least 4t yr−1

Costs for storage, spreading equipment, delayed sowing and ground packing → around €2400 kg−1 for Östergötland





Reduced phosphorus in animal food

For Sweden: 50t yr–1 P reduction

No costs for the farmer


Struvite crystalisation

Re-use P fertilizer through urban waste

Could meet future P fertilizer needs for global food production

Cordell et al., 2009

Re-use P fertilizer that might otherwise leach away

Farmers may save money

Archambault, 2004

Communicative strategies to increase vegetarian food

Reduces agricultural resource inputs

One of the most cost-effective measure to reduce agricultural resource inputs

Cordell et al., 2009

Reduces nutrient inputs

Asmala et al., 2011

Increased public procurement of local organic food

More secure revenues



Tradable emission permits



Certification Unspecified reduction effect through encouragement of farmers

Higher income Archambault, 2004

Environmental awareness from related business


Archambault, 2004

Increase demand of eco-food

Unspecified reduction effect through more sale of environmentally beneficial products

Higher income Archambault, 2004

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The purpose of this report was to assess how objectives concerning the ‘environmental dimension’ of a sustainable Baltic Sea Region integrate with other policy objectives, and to identify trade-offs and synergies between measures targeting different objectives. Along with the overarching objective for a sustainable agriculture, we identified several objectives concerning both the supply and the demand side of viable farming. The findings from both the scientific review and the stakeholder dialogue suggest that ‘profitable agriculture’ is discussed in relation to sustainable agriculture and the achievement of the BSAP goals for reducing eutrophication, while the objectives of ‘increased food production’ and ‘low food prices’ are not equally incorporated in the discussion on sustainable agriculture in the BSR. This is similar to findings by Dorward (2013), who, in discussing policies for sustainable development in the agricultural sector, notices that “fundamental impacts of links between agricultural productivity, sustainability and real food price changes are often overlooked in current policy

analysis. This is exacerbated by a lack of relevant and accessible indicators for monitoring agricultural productivity sustainability and real food prices” (Dorward, 2013, p. 40).

The challenge of integrating different policy goals for sustainable agriculture has been highlighted also by others. For example, Lankosi (2003) argues that “other dimensions of multifunctional agriculture, such as food security and viability of rural areas, may require minimum levels of domestic production and income generation to rural areas. Including them in our analysis may give more support for the use of production-related supports, including price support. This remains an open issue for further study” (Lankoski, 2003, p. 70).

In a follow-up email, one participant of our stakeholder dialogue (a civil servant) expressed that although according to his personal priorities ‘sustainable agriculture’ was more important, followed by the ‘BSAP objectives of reducing N and P loads’,

5.3 Interpretation of the results on reviewed and proposed measuresAs mentioned, the scientific review and the stakeholder dialogue focused on one of the identified sub-objectives for sustainable agriculture, namely eutrophication of the Baltic Sea. Hence, it is no surprise that this sub-objective stands out. The findings from the scientific review and the stakeholder dialogue suggest that ‘profitable agriculture’, expressed through the notions of financial viability and economic incentives,

is discussed in relation to sustainable agriculture and the achievement of the BSAP goals for reducing eutrophication. On the other hand, the other two identified policy objectives – ‘increased food production’ and ‘low food prices’ – are not integrated in the discussion on sustainable agriculture in the BSR, neither in the scientific literature nor in the concerns expressed by the workshop participants.

6. DISCUSSION

Table 5. Measures suggested by the expert stakeholder group.

Number of answers

Incl. in our lit. review

Tax (e.g. on fertilizers) 16 XReform CAP 6 -Subsidies 5 XAdvice/ information for farmers/civil society/children about environmental actions and sustainable food production

5 X

Set local objectives 3 -Balance between plant production and animal husbandry in a system

3 -

Binding goals and limits, e.g. animal density, reduction goals, … 2 -Handling of manure/compost 2 XNo more investment in intensive animal production 2 -Support research for environmentally friendly farming technologies

2 X

Financial support for ERA 2 -Public procurement 2 XRegulation on nutrient inputs in the farming systems 1 XRecycling farming with rumineus animals 1 XBetter balance between top-down & bottom-up incentives 1 XSave arable land 1 -Holistic approach to water management 1 -Cooperate between countries and along the food chain 1 -Use legal and voluntary measures based on national and/or regional/local conditions

1 X

Cap & trade 1 X

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he believed that ‘low food prices’ and ‘increased food production’ are the two most important policy goals as reflected by EU CAP policies.

If these observations are correct, then ‘low food prices’ might be considered the elephant in the room: experts and decision-makers express concern for the dying Baltic Sea, but the real obstacle may be a political unwillingness to pay the costs for “Saving the Sea”, which is the overall aim of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR). The costs for the necessary measures show up as higher production costs for farmers, which must be partially compensated by subsidies/payments (i.e. higher taxes) and higher food prices. The minimum annual cost for society of achieving the BSAP targets (cost-effective measures including effects on farm profitability and food prices) has been estimated to €4.7 billion (Wulff et al. 2014). This corresponds to an average cost of €20/kg N and €130/kg P, which are reasonable cost estimates according to our synthesis of scientific findings in Table 4.4 This is a lot of money.

So which are these possible measures to save the Baltic Sea that we as society seem to fear as unaffordable? When we compare the measures proposed by our expert stakeholder group with the measures analysed in the scientific literature, we observe an overlap: the measure ‘tax on fertilizers’ was suggested most frequently by our group – 16 times equalling a third of all proposed options – and has also been addressed by the scientific literature. The proposed ’Reforming the CAP’ and more precise ‘binding goals and limits’ encompass the scientific analysis of for example ‘reductions in cattle, pigs, and

4 20,000 * 133,170 + 130,000 * 15,016 = 4.6 billion

poultry’ and ‘fertilizers reduction’. There was also an agreement of emphasis concerning ‘handling of manure/compost’, ‘cap and trade’ (‘tradable emission permits’) and ‘public procurement’, although these latter measures were not frequently addressed.

‘Subsidies’ was frequently proposed by our stakeholder group and also addressed in our limited scientific review directly (‘buffer strip subsidy’) and indirectly (wetlands). The second pillar of the CAP already includes substantial subsidies and payments for more environmentally friendly agricultural management but these could arguably be better targeted at reducing nutrient leakage. Additionally, ‘advice/information for farmers/civil society/children about environmental actions and sustainable food production’ proposed by the expert stakeholder group resonates with some of the measures discussed in the scientific literature.

However, while ‘Balance between plant production and animal husbandry in a system’ and ‘No more investment in intensive animal production’ were mentioned by several of the stakeholders during the workshop, these measures have hardly been addressed by the scientific literature. And vice versa, common measures in the scientific literature like wetlands, catch crops and buffer strips were not prioritised in the stakeholder dialogue.

If our scientific literature review is representative for the research on sustainable agriculture and eutrophication of the Baltic Sea, we can identify a knowledge gap: very little is known about the effects of policy measures for reducing eutrophication on agricultural yields and food prices, although – continuing on the preceding observations – these seem to be

important policy goals. Indeed, the research and policy community concerned with sustainable agriculture in the BSR seem not to have assimilated these policy goals, which partly may explain the limited success in implementing the parts of the BSAP related to agricultural activities.

Concerning agricultural yields, the Swedish Board of Agriculture (2008) has estimated that closing down all cereal production in Southern Sweden, except inlands, would result in 13,000 tonnes of annual reduction of nitrogen emissions (p. 58). Even such drastic measures, that would close down 90% of the Swedish cereal production and have enormous repercussions on animal husbandry, would be insufficient to reach the BSAP reduction agreement for Sweden (20,780 tonnes N). Closing down the best agricultural land may appear completely unrealistic, but then – what are the alternatives if we really want to meet the BSAP targets? Such radical research questions have only to a limited extent been addressed by researchers. The Beras project is an exception, suggesting Ecological Recycling Agriculture (ERA) including a lower animal density (<0.75 animal units/ha) as a strategy for reducing excessive manure concentrations (e.g. Larsson and Granstedt 2010). A transformation to ERA within the whole Baltic Sea Region is the only measure analysed in the scientific literature that has the potential to achieve the BSAP targets. Most of the stakeholders involved in our dialogue are also part of the Beras project and some of them proposed measures such as ‘Balance between plant production and animal husbandry in a system’, ‘No more investment in intensive animal production’, ‘Regulation on nutrient inputs in the farming systems’ and ‘Financial support for ERA’, which are all related to an ERA transformation. Clearly, such measures

may reduce farm profits unless adequate subsidies are paid. However, if we want to save the Baltic Sea, ERA appears to be a much more realistic strategy than prohibiting agriculture (or cereal production) as such. And with a systems approach a transformation to ERA together with adaptation of our diet need not imply any additional cost for the food we eat. We will soon return to this.

However, regulations for reducing the intensity of animal production may appear unrealistic given the present political discourse and according to the present mental model where specialization to larger animal production units is cherished. An indication of this is that some research programs explicitly treat the present EU regulation, allowing as much as 1.4 animal units per hectare, as an exogenous variable (meaning it should be taken as ‘given’ and excluded from scientific analysis). Hence, an ideological fixation on specialization may impede research and policy initiatives that are probably needed to achieve the BSAP targets.

‘Public procurement’, ‘Setting local objectives’ or ‘Cooperate between countries and along the food chain’ suggest there are other policy options than just farm measures, taxes and subsidies. The present policies in Sweden are inconsistent; on the one hand politicians have high standards on environment, animal husbandry and antibiotics, resulting in higher production costs. On the other hand Swedish politicians do not use public procurement to support these policies, perhaps because this would be interpreted as protectionism. This has contributed to the rapid decline of Swedish farmers; for example, before 2000 Sweden was self-sufficient in pork and by 2012 as

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much as 32% of the pork consumed was imported (Swedish Board of Agriculture, 2013).

Serving 33,000 meals daily, Södertälje municipality, south of Stockholm, has shown the way forward in this respect. The municipality decided in 2001 to use public procurement of food to promote the environment and food quality5. With a clear strategy focused on organic and “Baltic Sea smart” (i.e. ERA) food with a higher proportion of vegetables, they have adapted demand to what organic farms with little nutrient leakage can produce profitably, without increasing the cost per meal. For this they received a prestigious prize as the best school food municipality in Sweden in 2014.6 An integrated approach to the whole food chain allows for a transformation to organic and low-leakage agriculture, and corresponding adaptations

5 See http://urbact.eu/en/projects/quality-sustainable-living/diet-for-a-green-planet/homepage/.6 http://lt.se/nyheter/sodertalje/1.2437614-sodertalje-har-basta-skolmaten

of the “food basket,” i.e. demand (Larsson et al., 2012). Without adaptations of demand, a transformation to ERA would increase food prices by 17% (Larsson & Granstedt 2010).

The enormous cost estimations for reaching the BSAP eutrophication targets are of course deterrent for any politician. However, these monetary estimations are generally based on unrealistic scenarios and static models in which one variable (N or P) is changed radically while no adaptations are made either in the farming system or in the whole food system. Such reductionist scientific approaches fail to address the continuous adaptations in society and in the Swedish transportation and energy sectors this has resulted in an overestimation of the social costs for transformation to sustainable development (Axelsson 2014). Lack of novel perspectives should not stop us from saving the Baltic Sea.

A strategy for saving the Baltic Sea needs to integrate a set of policy and management measures. The traditional approach is to analyse one measure at the time and compare the cost-effectiveness of different measures in relation to one policy objective. In this report, we instead chose the MCDA framework, which allows for analysing the effects of several policy measures on several policy objectives. This has shown to be a valuable approach for the subject of this report. Very few scientific studies on the subject ‘reducing eutrophication’ assess its consequences for agricultural yields and food prices, although these appear to be major concerns for politicians. One could argue that existing cost-effectiveness analyses on reducing N and P address yields and food prices indirectly, but we believe such estimates are less accurate since cost-effectiveness analyses are based on the cost of single measures with no dynamic adaptations of the farming system or of the food system. The difficulty in reaching the BSAP targets suggests that systemic changes

are needed to save the Baltic Sea and to make agriculture more sustainable in all dimensions.

Second, we suggest that public procurement is a necessary aspect of such an integrated policy. More research and experimentation are needed to understand the potential of public procurement. Politicians need to support the production methods they legislate. To avoid protectionism, public procurement need not be limited to local or even national products but to any product produced according to certain standards. Södertälje municipality has shown how a larger scope, addressing the whole food system including the final stages of cooking and serving, has enabled profitable agriculture based on sustainable farming systems. More research and development of such integrated approaches are in great need.

Third, the participants at the stakeholder dialogue proposed several measures that are rarely addressed in the scientific literature. There may be scientific reasons

7. CONCLUSIONS OF REPORT

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for this: a reductionist approach, analysing one variable while assuming other variables fixed, is often considered to be more “researchable.” There could also be political or ideological reasons as discussed above: reducing the intensity of animal production is contrary to the present view of rational agriculture. We are not saying that less intensive animal production always is necessary for reducing nutrient leakage. But we conclude that the lack of scientific assessment of lower animal density is one of the main data gaps that have emerged from this report.

Fourth, the MCDA and the participatory and deliberative methods it encompasses allows for social learning and reflection, especially

when you are able to gather representatives from different sectors and countries. The value and importance of deliberative techniques have been acknowledged for various complex issues requiring more systemic changes (Spash, 2008; Szabó, 2011; Lo, 2012). The iterative process of MCDA has allowed for learning processes to take place and for new information to be integrated into the proceeding. This report thus underpins the importance of conducting more thorough and detailed MCDAs in order to further identify novel approaches needed for a transformation of agriculture. After all it is obvious that new perspectives are required to save the Baltic Sea.

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HELCOM. (2013). HELCOM Copenhagen Ministerial Declaration. Copenhagen. Including “Revised Palette of measures for reducing phosphorus and nitrogen losses from agriculture.” http://www.helcom.fi/Documents/Ministerial2013/Ministerial%20 declaration/Adopted_endorsed%20documents/Revised%20palette%20of%20agri- environment%20measures.pdf

HELCOM. (2014). Baltic Sea Action Plan: eutrophication targets. Retrieved May 19, 2014, from http://helcom.fi/baltic-sea-action-plan

Iho, A., & Laukkanen, M. (2012). Precision phosphorus management and agricultural phosphorus loading. Ecological Economics, 77. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.02.010

International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). (2009). Agriculture at a crossroads.

Jakobsson, C. (2012). Sustainable agriculture: Ecosystem Health and Sustainable Agriculture 1. (J. S. Arne Gustafson, Allan Kaasik, Alexander Fehér, Ed.). Uppsala: Batic University Press.

Lankoski, J. (2003). Agri-environmental externalities: a framework for designing targeted policies. European Review of Agriculture Economics, 30(1). doi:10.1093/erae/30.1.51

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Larsson, M., & Granstedt, A. (2010). Sustainable governance of the agriculture and the Baltic Sea — Agricultural reforms, food production and curbed eutrophication. Ecological Economics, 69(10). doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2010.05.003

Larsson, M. A. Granstedt and O. Thomsson. 2012. Sstainable food systems - targeting production methods, distribution or food basket content? pp. 197-216 in Reed, M. (ed.), Organic food and agriculture - new trends and developments in the social sciences. Intech.

Lo, A. Y. (2012). The Encroachment of Value Pragmatism on Pluralism: The Practice of the Valuation of Urban Green Space Using Stated-preference Approaches. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 36(1). doi:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01069.x

Malmaeus, J. M., & Karlsson, O. M. (2010). Estimating costs and potentials of different methods to reduce the Swedish phosphorus load from agriculture to surface water. The Science of the Total Environment, 408(3). doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.10.021

Spash, C. L. (1999). Deliberative Monetary Valuation and the Evidence for a New Value Theory.

Swedish Board of Agriculture. 2013. Svenska matvanor och matpriser: Köttkonsumtionen i siffror. Utveckling och orsaker. Rapport 2013:2

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Swedish EPA (2009). Mulitkriterieanalys för hållbar efterbehandling - Metodutveckling och exempel på tillämpning. Rapport 5891. http://www.naturvardsverket.se/Documents/ publikationer/978-91-620-5891-3.pdf?pid=3490

Szabó, Z. (2011). Reducing protest responses by deliberative monetary valuation: Improving the validity of biodiversity valuation. Ecological Economics, 72. doi:10.1016/j. ecolecon.2011.09.025

Turner, R. K., Georgiou, S., Gren, I.-M., Wulff, F., Barrett, S., Söderqvist, T., … Markowska, A. (1999). Managing nutrient fluxes and pollution in the Baltic: an interdisciplinary simulation study. Ecological Economics, 30(2). doi:10.1016/S0921-8009(99)00046-4

Wulff, F., Humborg, C., Andersen, H. E., Blicher-Mathiesen, G., Czajkowski, M., Elofsson, K., … Zylicz, T. (2014). Reduction of Baltic Sea nutrient inputs and allocation of abatement costs within the Baltic Sea catchment. Ambio, 43(1). doi:10.1007/s13280-013-0484-5

Wulff, F., Savchuk, O. P., Sokolov, A., Humborg, C., & Mörth, C.-M. (2007). Management Options and Effects on a Marine Ecosystem : Assessing the Future of the Baltic. Royal Swedish Academy of Science, 36(2).

1. Fertilizers reduction (Gren & Scharin, 2007); (Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014); (Turner et al., 1999); (Elofsson, 2011); (Ahlvik, Ekholm, Hyytiäinen, & Pitkänen, 2014); (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010); mentioned by (Gren, 2008).

“When calculating costs of fertilizers reduction, it is assumed that leaching nitrogen can be reduced by 50% (Gren et al. 1995). Further reduction would require structural changes in the agricultural technology, the cost of which would require national sector wide simulations of changed production technology. The abatement cost of this measure represents the farmer’s foregone profits when applying a lower quantity of fertilizer than the profit maximizing level. The change in profits consists of the change in revenue when yield changes due to the reduced application of fertilizers. These losses are estimated by means of estimated demand for nitrogen fertilizers (…)the calculated marginal cost of reducing nitrogen leakage then ranges from SEK 0 to 90 kg–1 N at the source differing for different levels of reduction” (Gren & Scharin, 2007, p. 30).

“… N- abatement” (Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014, p. 19).N- and P-abatement. Costs ranging from 12-236 SEK/kg N reduction and 114-6604 sek/kg P reduction. “Further low cost measures include, in the agricultural sector, the reduction in use of nitrogen fertilizers (…)” (Turner et al., 1999, p. 345).

Impact on N and P emissions. “(…) the cost is the reduction in profit” (Elofsson, 2011, p. 229). “(…) [focus on] reducing the inorganic phosphorus fertilization [because it is a] relatively cheap abatement measure (…)whereas reducing nitrogen loading to a large extent requires the use of more expensive measures such as restoring wetlands and reducing inorganic

APPENDIX

APPENDIX 1: EXCERPTS FROM SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE AS A BASIS FOR THE TABLE ON POLICY AND MANAGEMENT MEASURES

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nitrogen fertilization” (Ahlvik et al., 2014, p. 173). “Reductions in the use of chemical fertilizers are by far the most important measure” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1950). General information on agricultural production: “Following this, a large scale conversion to ERA does not have to result in lower production. The ERA 2 scenario suggests that the production figures for the region would remain basically the same as today” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1948).

2. Fertilizer application supervision/ precision phosphorus management (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010); (Iho & Laukkanen, 2012); (Archambault, 2004)

Pig farms: “In a previous section we estimated that 2 kg ha−1was reduced in pig farms due to reduced phosphorus content in food, and we may assume a similar amount for improved nutrient budgets. For the mathematics we refer to the section about reduced phosphorus in animal food since the advising costs should be identical in this case. We hence end up with a cost for reduced phosphorus leakage from pig farms of between €7and €11 kg–1 of phosphorus and a national potential around 50t” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 477).Dairy farms: “If the phosphorus surplus in 300,000 ha of farm land is decreased by 0.3 kg ha−1 it means a reduction of 90t of phosphorus (or around 12t of leaked phosphorus). The cost for this may be set to 0.5·€3,800,000= €1,900,000 yr−1 or around €160 kg–1 of leaked phosphorus. If we instead assume an advising cost of €200 yr−1 for a dairy farm of 100 ha the cost will be €50 kg–1 of leaked phosphorus” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 477).Potato farms: “(…) the cost for phosphorus reduction by reduced manure spreading in potato fields is around €60 kg−1. The national reduction potential would be around 18t” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 477).

“The results show that efficient policies to reduce phosphorus loading from agricultural land should adjust fertilization application rates in response to changes in the soil phosphorus level, in particular where the initial soil phosphorus stock is notably above the optimal steady state level” Table: 2.4-29.9 kg/ha P-loss. “(…) the socially optimal policy would differentiate the load reductions according to land characteristics, allocating a greater reduction to a field with a higher initial soil phosphorus level (…) According to a farm survey carried out in 2000 to assess farmer experiences with precision agriculture in Denmark, Great Britain and Nebraska, United States, variable rate fertilizer application was the practice most commonly cited as likely to increase farm profits — either through increased yield or decreased total applications of phosphorus and potassium” (Iho & Laukkanen, 2012, p. 99).

“Decreases the threat of harmful chemicals in the water system, improves biodiversity, increases the integrity of ecological systems (…) Decreases the need for farmers to apply as many chemicals, thus saving money” (Archambault, 2004, p. 497).

3. Fertilizer tax (Lankoski, 2003); (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010)Discussed in combination with buffer strip subsidy: “(…) [this is] a tax on fertilizer to account for the runoff damages and reduced biodiversity benefits caused by fertilizer use (…) The fertilizer tax is a unit tax. One can conclude from (6a) that the level of the optimal fertilizer tax depends on the marginal damage of runoff (which is equal over all parcels) and the

marginal runoffs from fertilizer use in each parcel (…) This means that the fertilizer tax has to be differentiated with respect to parcels and crops. The tax rate should be higher on parcels with higher land quality, as marginal runoffs are greater there because of higher fertilizer intensity and smaller buffer strips (…) The socially optimal solution produces lower private profits because of the internalization of negative and positive externalities associated with runoffs and agro-ecosystem diversity” (Lankoski, 2003, p. 59).

“Increased taxation on fertilizers together with a subsidy for changed land use is a cost efficient way to reduce nutrient runoff from agriculture” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1950). General information on agricultural production: “Following this, a large scale conversion to ERA does not have to result in lower production. The ERA 2 scenario suggests that the production figures for the region would remain basically the same as today” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1948).

4. Catch crops (Gren & Scharin, 2007); (Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014); (Turner et al., 1999); (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010); (Archambault, 2004); mentioned by (Gren, 2008)

“Cultivation of catch crops reduces leaching when it is sowed at the same time as the ordinary crop and then continues to grow after the ordinary crop is harvested, thereby taking up residual nitrogen in the soil and reducing the nitrogen leaching from the root zone. There are indications that catch crop cultivation in the Mälar region can reduce the amount of leaching by at most 20% (Scharin 2003). The cost of catch crops for the farmer consists of seed cost, sowing cost and profit loss due to decreased harvest, and is for this region estimated to be SEK 130 kg–1 N” (Gren & Scharin, 2007, p. 30).

“… N-abatement” (Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014, p. 19).

“Further low cost measures include, in the agricultural sector (…) the cultivation of cash crops” (Turner et al., 1999, p. 345).

“Field experiments show reduced losses of nutrients due to (…) in-sowing catch crop” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1947). For Sweden: 300 N ton emissions reduced and 333 SEK/kg N costs (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1949). General information on agricultural production: “Following this, a large scale conversion to ERA does not have to result in lower production. The ERA 2 scenario suggests that the production figures for the region would remain basically the same as today” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1948).

“Restores nitrogen in the soil, reduces erosion by keeping the ground covered, helps reduce crop losses to insects by presenting them with a changing target (…) Improvement of soil quality and protection from pests decreases the reliance of farmers on artificial fertilizers and chemical pest control, therefore saving economic resources (…) In the short term, replacing crops that earn money with nitrogen-fixing crops could decrease the overall income of farmers” (Archambault, 2004, p. 497).

5. Energy crops (Archambault, 2004)

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“Improves the soil quality as many energy crops also contribute to nitrogen fixation. Prevents erosion by keeping arable land covered (…) Supplements the income of farmers by the sale of energy crops. Improving soil quality decreases the need to buy expensive fertilizers and other chemicals (…) Growing energy crops decreases the space for other crops that can earn money” (Archambault, 2004, p. 497).6. Restoration or construction of wetlands (Gren & Scharin, 2007); (Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014); (Turner et al., 1999); (Elofsson, 2011); (Gren, 2008); (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010); (Ahlvik et al., 2014); (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010); (Archambault, 2004)

“Restoration or construction of wetlands as an abatement method can, in principle, increase retention substantially due to various biogeochemical processes, such as denitrification, uptake in biomass and sedi- mentation (…) the average retention capacity of wetlands in the Mälar region is approximately 15% of the nitrogen inflow. The cost of nitrogen abatement by wetlands consists of the operational cost for harvesting, investment cost, and the opportunity cost from profits of foregone best uses of the land site. The opportunity cost of the land, for the farmer, is given by the surplus it gives him, which in this study is based on the grant the farmer would receive for putting cultivated land into lay and is approximately SEK 2,600 ha–1 in this region (Scharin 2003). Investment and management costs are obtained by econometric estimates of these costs for wetland creation in the catchment, which in total gives 20 observations (see Appendix 1 for details). The linear regression equation show high statistical significance, which results in a constant marginal costs of SEK 30 kg–1 N abatement” (Gren & Scharin, 2007, p. 30).

“N and P-abatement” (Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014, p. 20).

“N-abatement = 12-66 SEK/kg N reduction; P-abatement = 545-18232 SEK/kg P reduction” (Turner et al., 1999, p. 345).

“(…)annual costs, based on investment costs” (Elofsson, 2011, p. 229).

“Wetland creation is regarded as a particularly promising technology for the cleaning of nutrients for downstream aquatic ecosystems (…) cost per unit wetland area, which includes opportunity cost of land and maintenance cost (…)” (Gren, 2008, p. 338).

“Governmental support for building wetlands is given today and calculations indicate that the cost regarding phosphorus reduction amounts to around €120 kg−1 and the national potential is estimated to be 4.3t (SEPA,2007)” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 478).

Do not focus on restoring wetlands, because it is a more expensive measure (Ahlvik et al., 2014, p. 173).

100 ton N emissions reductions for Baltic Sea for 6000 ha (construction/reconstruction) and 500 ton N emissions reductions for Baltic Sea in case of addition of 6000 ha (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1949). General information on agricultural production: “Following this, a large scale conversion to ERA does not have to result in lower production. The ERA 2 scenario

suggests that the production figures for the region would remain basically the same as today” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1948).

“Helps keep nutrients and pesticides in the runoff from reaching the sea. Also increases biodiversity and fish habitat (…) Increased biodiversity may equate the existence of more natural predators. More fishing and wetland recreation should draw visitors who may add to local economy (…)The most efficient wetlands space away from valuable agriculture land, and direct compensation from the government might not make up the costs” (Archambault, 2004, p. 497).

7. Reductions in cattle, pigs, and poultry (Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014); (Turner et al., 1999); (Elofsson, 2011); (Frederik Wulff, Savchuk, Sokolov, Humborg, & Mörth, 2007); (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010); (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010); mentioned by (Gren, 2008)

“(…) livestock reductions are anticipated to have effects on both N and P abatement in most cases (…)The maximum capacity for the livestock reduction measures was set at 30 % of the current herd sizes for the species concerned in each drainage basin. This capacity limit was chosen because further reductions in livestock numbers would be likely to incur additional costs, which are not reflected in the model, such as costs arising from prior investment in animal housing facilities and milking parlors” (Fredrik Wulff et al., 2014, p. 20).

“N- and P-abatement. Costs ranging from 12-236 SEK/kg N reduction and 114-6604 sek/kg P reduction” (Turner et al., 1999).

“ (…) associated loss in short-run profits to farmers when abstaining from production” (Elofsson, 2011, p. 229).

“However, the effects of this 50% reduction in stocks are rather small in terms of nutrient load reductions and subsequent effects on the Baltic Sea (…) The primary reason for this is the high retentions of N and P used in the model, 83% and 97%, respectively (23). However, the effect of reduced livestock varies greatly between depending on animal density, from 31% and 25% of the N and P loads from Danish drainage basins with intensive agriculture to about 1% for both N and P in northern Sweden and Finland (…)or 25t of phosphorus leaking to surface water” (Frederik Wulff et al., 2007, p. 246).

“(…) the cost is related to the loss of income. The yearly contribution margins are different for different animal types but typically ranging from between €4 (pig for fattening) and €1000 (dairy cow). This includes profits (milk, meat), production costs (animal purchase, feeding stuffs) and running costs (veterinary costs, housing, cost of interests) (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 475).

“Regions with the highest levels of leakage also have high densities of animal production” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1946). General information on agricultural production: “Following this, a large scale conversion to ERA does not have to result in lower production. The ERA 2 scenario suggests that the production figures for the region would remain basically

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the same as today” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1948).

8. Grassland (Frederik Wulff et al., 2007); (Bryhn, 2009); (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010) “Empirical studies suggest that converting agricultural land into grassland will substantially reduce N leakage up to 50%” (Frederik Wulff et al., 2007, p. 247).

“Agricultural measures which imply decreased production due to changes in land use should be avoided because they have uncertain effects on the TP loading, they could be difficult to raise public and political support for, and they could also export the eutrophication problem to other regions of the world while increasing food transports” (Bryhn, 2009, p. 6).

“(…) grass production released 20% less phosphorus than other crops which would typically correspond to 0.1 kg ha−1yr−1 (…) grain production is actually more profitable than grass production and assume a cost for increasing grass production at €100 ha−1(…) if the phosphorus leakage is reduced by 0.1 kg ha–1 the cost for the reduction is €1000 kg−1yr−1” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 476).

9. Changed spreading time of manure (Elofsson, 2011); (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010); mentioned by (Gren, 2008)

“(…) annual costs, based on investment costs (…)” (Elofsson, 2011, p. 229).

“Field experiments show reduced losses of nutrients due to (…) applying of manure only during spring” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1947). 100 ton N reduced emissions to Baltic Sea (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1949). General information on agricultural production: “Following this, a large scale conversion to ERA does not have to result in lower production. The ERA 2 scenario suggests that the production figures for the region would remain basically the same as today” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1948).

10. Buffer strips/protection zones (Elofsson, 2011); (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010); mentioned by (Gren, 2008)

“(…) associated loss in short-run profits to farmers when abstaining from production” (Elofsson, 2011, p. 229).

“SEPA (2007) estimate the cost for this method to be between €470 and €4900 kg−1 and the national potential to be 7.5t·yr−1” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 477).

11. Buffer strip subsidy (Lankoski, 2003)

Discussed in combination with tax on fertilizers! “(…) to encourage the establishment of buffer strip areas to reduce runoff damages and increase biodiversity benefit (…) subsidy rate depends on the marginal effect of the buffer strip on biodiversity (the last term), as well as on the value of the marginal runoff reduction (the second last term) (…) in the absence of a buffer strip subsidy the optimal level of buffer strips and thus the estimate of

floral species richness in buffer strip areas is zero. Consequently, this solution provides the least social welfare. The socially optimal solution produces lower private profits because of the internalization of negative and positive externalities associated with runoffs and agro-ecosystem diversity (…)” (Lankoski, 2003, p. 60).

12. Improved manure handling (Frederik Wulff et al., 2007); (Gren, 2008); (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010); (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010)

”The effects on nutrient loads are small (…): a 7% reduction of N load to the Baltic proper and less to the Gulfs of Riga and Finland. No effects are seen in the loads neither to the Bothnian Bay and Sea nor to Danish waters and Kattegat where the surrounding countries have already implemented manure treatment. However, the model only shows the immediate response in terms of leakage of nutrients in terms of leakage of nutrients into the surface and ground waters and does not take into account the long-term effects” (Frederik Wulff et al., 2007, p. 246).

“(…) measures such as storing of manure during wintertime, which aim at decreasing the leaching of nitrogen during spring and thereby reducing the availability of nutrient for algae growth in subsequent summer time” (Gren, 2008, p. 341).

“Calculations for the county of Östergötland (SEPA, 2003) taking costs for storage, spreading equipment, delayed sowing and ground packing into account arrived at phosphorus reduction costs around €2400 kg−1, and the potential for the county of Östergötland was around 400 kg yr−1. The county holds around 10% of the Swedish agricultural area so the national potential for this measure is probably around 4t·yr−1. This may be an underestimate since the animal density is relatively low in the county of Östergötland” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 477).

“(…) requirements for how to store manure in a manner that minimize the loss of nutrients (…)” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1944). General information on agricultural production: “Following this, a large scale conversion to ERA does not have to result in lower production. The ERA 2 scenario suggests that the production figures for the region would remain basically the same as today” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1948).

13. Reduced phosphorus in animal food (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010)

“Theoretically, there is no cost for the farmer to decrease the phosphorus content in food (…) We assume the national potential in Sweden to be three times the reduction potential within the ‘Focus on nutrients’ campaign, i.e. 0.135·130·3≈50t yr–1” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 476).

14. Transformation of farmland to forest (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010)

“If forest is planted the phosphorus input from fertilizing stops and phosphorus leakage and erosion is decreased due to less surface runoff. To estimate the cost of this measure for

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reducing phosphorus leakage the price for wood and the costs for clearance and plantation must be compared to the corresponding loss of income from discontinued crop production (…)The phosphorus reduction cost is hence estimated to be €220 kg−1yr−1 (…)If 1% of the Swedish agricultural land or 30,000ha is transformed to forest land phosphorus leakage may be reduced by around 9 t yr–1” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 476).

15. Biogas production (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010)

“This yields a cost for phosphorus reduction of (37,500–2600)/20=€2600 kg (…) With higher electricity prices and pricing of greenhouse gas emissions the cost may decrease in the future (…)If 1% of the Swedish manure (190t of phosphorus) be used for biogas production phosphorus leakage could be reduced with 4t” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 477).

16. Fallow fields (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010)

“(…) phosphorus leakage will go down by 0.27 kg ha−1yr−1. The cost for this depends on the opportunity cost for not using the land for production” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 477).

17. Improved regularization of boundaries (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010)

“We therefore assume a typical cost for improved regularization of boundaries to €200 and a national potential of 450 kg” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 477).

18. Grass on turn-spaces (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010)

“Calculations for the county of Östergötland (SEPA, 2003) arrive at a cost for this measure between €50 and €490 kg−1 and a reduction potential around 450 kg. The national potential for Sweden should hence amount to around 4.5t” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 477).

19. Controlled drainage (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010)

“SEPA (2007) estimates costs for measures of controlled drainage to be between €950 and €4700 kg−1 and the national potential to be around 2.6t” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 478).

20.Lime filter drainage (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010)

“SEPA (2007) estimates costs for these measures to be between €685 and €3600 kg−1 and the national potential to be around 1t” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 478).

21. Dams as phosphorus traps (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010)

“The cost of dams as phosphorus traps has by SEPA (2007) been estimated to be €102 kg−1 and the national potential to be around 10t” (Malmaeus & Karlsson, 2010, p. 478).

22. Changed plowing/tillage strategies (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010)

“Field experiments show reduced losses of nutrients due to changed plowing practices (…)”.General information on agricultural production: “Following this, a large scale conversion to ERA does not have to result in lower production. The ERA 2 scenario suggests that the production figures for the region would remain basically the same as today” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1948).

23. Struvite crystalisation (Cordell et al., 2009); (Archambault, 2004)

“(…) phosphorus can be recovered from the food production and consumption system and reused as a fertilizer either directly or after intermediate processing (…) Struvite crystalisation and recovery is a promising technological process that has the potential to both remove phosphorus from wastewater by- products more efficiently, and, provide an alternative source of phosphate fertilizer (…)Fertilizing urban agriculture with phosphorus recovered from organic urban waste could be a significant step towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals on eradicating hunger and poverty, and providing access to safe sanitation (…) However there are a number of technologies and policy options that exist today at various stages of development – from research to demonstration and implementation – that together could meet future phosphate fertilizer needs for global food production” (Cordell et al., 2009, p. 300).

“Brings nutrients to the agriculture system that might otherwise leach into the water system or not be utilized. The nutrients in this organic material may have their origin in agriculture fields. Therefore, utilizing this material increases the soil quality while helping to close the nutrient loop (…) Farmers may save money by using nutrients in this material while the need for artificial fertilizers is reduced” (Archambault, 2004, p. 497).

24. Communicative strategies to reduce the intake of animal products and increase the intake of plant products (Cordell et al., 2009); (Asmala, Saikku, & Vienonen, 2011)

“(…) shifting to a ‘smart vegetarian’ diet, combined with reducing over-consumption, would be one of the most cost-effective measures to reduce agricultural resource inputs (including water, energy, land and fertilizers) and would also minimize greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution. Food preferences are generally more strongly correlated with taste, advertisements and price than they are with nutritional value (SIWI-IWMI, 2004). Therefore, potential strategies to reduce the demand for phosphorus include encouraging the move to foods which require the input of less phosphorus, water and energy. This could be done through appropriate communication strategies or economic incentives in both the developed and developing worlds” (Cordell et al., 2009, p. 301).

“Respectively, reducing the nutrient input would mainly occur by reducing the intake of animal products and increasing the intake of plant products” (Asmala et al., 2011, p. 4920).

25. Increased public procurement of local organic food (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010)

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“(…) increased public procurement of local organic food to stimulate a sustainable agriculture. Both these suggestions could favor ERA (…)” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1950). General information on agricultural production: “Following this, a large scale conversion to ERA does not have to result in lower production. The ERA 2 scenario suggests that the production figures for the region would remain basically the same as today” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1948).

26. Tradable emission permits (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010)

“However, one solution, which also would favor ERA, could be to introduce tradable permits for animal production, for spreading manure or for mineral fertilizers. Animal density could be adjusted to acreage in such a way that the nutrient content in the manure produced don’t exceed the need of vegetables produced (Alkan-Olsson, 2004). A producer with plenty of animals could buy spreading permits for manure from a neighboring farm” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1950). General information on agricultural production: “Following this, a large scale conversion to ERA does not have to result in lower production. The ERA 2 scenario suggests that the production figures for the region would remain basically the same as today” (Larsson & Granstedt, 2010, p. 1948).

27. Certification (Archambault, 2004)

“Certification was undertaken because the dairy company to which the product is sold pays several kronor more per liter of milk. The owner of the dairy farm says that looking at all of the farms’ activities through the ISO certification process has encouraged her to think more about developing solutions to decrease the negative environmental impact of her farm” (Archambault, 2004, p. 497).

28. Governmental subsidies (Archambault, 2004)

“There are also opportunities for farmers to gain financial support for environmentally oriented endeavors through government subsidies. One example is the opportunity for farmers to apply for subsidies from the Swedish government for the creation of certain types of wetlands. Without such subsidies, constructing wetlands that are said to decrease the emissions going to the sea will likely be too costly” (Archambault, 2004, p. 494).

29. Environmental awareness from related business (Archambault, 2004)

Co-operatives, retailers, interest groups and organizations, farmers’ associations and special interest groups, financial institutions, academic institutions, extension agents, certifications and eco-labels and non-academic capacity building organizations all influence the activities on agricultural practices and the agricultural industry as a whole. Archambault (2004) extensively shows the importance of those businesses to promoting environmental related issues in the industry.

30. Increase demand of eco-food (Archambault, 2004)

“In order for market demand to be successful, there must be increased consumer awareness of the environmental and health benefits of various environmentally oriented products. This could be accomplished by the way retail businesses present products, and through communicative labeling (…) There must also be greater consumer access to these products, and the costs of these products should be reduced so they are attractive to consumers” (Archambault, 2004, p. 501).

Appendix 2. invitAtion to the SeminAr/WorkShop

Appendix 3. QueStionnAire to WorkShop pArticipAntS

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The Baltic Sea is threatened by eutrophication and agriculture is responsible for about 50 % of the nitrogen and phosphorus load to the sea. BERAS Implementation addresses these challenges through a systemic shift to Ecological Recycling Agriculture (ERA) in association with the whole food chain, from farmer to consumer. Through increased recirculation of resources and the application of best practises the nutrient leakage, caused by the highly specialised agricultural system, can be significantly curbed.

This report gathers the scientific results of the environmental, economic and sociological assessments and scenarios within the BERAS Implementation project. It includes theoretical frameworks, production models and evaluations of the conversion process based on a number of ERA case studies. Environmental impacts of farming systems, economic perspectives on conversion as well as policy recommendations for supporting a shift to ERA are presented.

BERAS Implementation (2010-2013) is a transnational project part-funded by EU (Baltic Sea Region Programme 2007-2013). The project has a scientific basis and a partnership and supporting network with competence within the whole food chain. Among these are 24 project partners from 9 countries around the Baltic Sea and 35 associated organisations with representatives also from Russia and Norway.