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Abstract
This paper examines the medium term consequences of the Luxembourg CAP reform agreement
in June 2003 for Dutch agriculture. Under this agreement, the EC has proposed to reduce
the amount of support to EU agriculture that is coupled to agricultural production and to
replace it through decoupled payments. The Netherlands has chosen for fully decoupled direct
payments for crops, sucker cows, bulls and ewe premiums, while it holds the slaughter premiums
for calves and adult cattle coupled. As the effect of this policy measures will largely depend
on the extent that the decoupled support will influence the behavior of the farmers regarding
their real production decisions, we have experimented with different ‘behavioral repercussion’
levels for decoupled payments. By evaluating the effects of these experiments on
farmer’s income levels, we could determine a kind of “optimal” farmers’ behavior as the result
of decupling of payments.
The CAP impact is measured against the baseline scenario, which is a view of the Dutch
agricultural sector under the unchanged CAP (continuation of Agenda 2000). To construct the
baseline and address the CAP effect, we have used the Dutch sub-model of AG-MEMOD
model. This is an econometric, dynamic, multi-product partial equilibrium commodity model
that includes the major arable crops and animal products. The dynamic characteristic of the
model allows for multi-annual projections.
Our simulation results show that the decoupling of direct payments will importantly influence
the Dutch agricultural sector. In the grain sector, the farmers’ productions decisions will
not be affected by the decoupling, i.e., farmers will continue to produce grains as would the
policy not have changed. However, we expect a significant impact of the decoupling on the
farmers’ income in this sector because the reactions of production costs and grain prices on
production changes is relatively low compared with the decrease in grain production. In the
beef and veal sector, producers are expected to react fully on decoupled payments. Thus, they
would treat the new payments as fully decoupled. However, the incomes in the beef and veal sector will not be significantly changed. Although the reduced animal stock will negatively influence
the income level, the lower production cost and higher producer prices will compensate
for this effect. At last, the implementation of the new CAP will significantly lower the
dairy prices and negatively influence the production levels. Nevertheless, the compensation
payments will keep the farmers’ incomes in this sector above the baseline level.