The New Delivery Model of the current EU CAP reform (2023-2027) brought associated challenges for Member States (MS) in terms of monitoring and evaluation. One of the main challenges is the need to report the effectiveness of the interventions (assessing performance towards objectives) included in their national CAP Strategic Plans (CSPs). To support Ireland’s Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine (DAFM) in addressing the new CSP reporting requirements, this study aims to implement an ex-post evaluation framework that includes a logic model of the direct payment (DP) interventions included in Ireland’s CSP and a set of additional indicators for their monitoring and evaluation based on existing farm-level data from the Teagasc National Farm Survey.
The logic model identified the increase or stabilisation of agricultural income, the improvement of income distribution, the enhancement of agricultural sector competitiveness, and the reduction of income disparities, among other outcomes, as common expected results from the implementation of DP interventions. These outcomes are directly related to CAP specific objective 1 (secure viable farm incomes), CAP specific objective 2 (enhance attractiveness and competitiveness of the agri-food sector), CAP specific objective 6 (generational renewal of farmers), and CAP specific objective 6 (biodiversity conservation). Indicators were proposed for some of these expected outcomes, although data was still lacking to allow the estimation of indicators related to themes such as competitiveness and generational renewal. The implemented framework provides a template with the potential for application in the ex-post evaluation of other interventions included in the CSP, as well as in other policy areas and policy making cycles, including the planning, monitoring and evaluation of the European Commission’s proposed National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs) for the CAP 2028-2034 programming period.
