%0 Report
%A Cano Montero, Elisa I.
%A Muñoz Colomina, Clara Isabel
%A Urquía Grande, Elena
%T Agri-environmental indicators in the management of farms: the Spanish case
%J Documentos de trabajo de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales
%D 2007
%U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/56588
%X The current reform of the EC Agricultural Policy decouples subsidies from production and introduces the new concept of “eco-conditionality” which makes the receipt of subsidies contingent on compliance with a number of environmental standards.This reform, put in place by the Commission, involves a high risk that the cultivation of some Mediterranean products will be abandoned. Their producers will have to meet the challenge of competitiveness and avail themselves of appropriate mechanisms such as codes of good agricultural practices and the application of efficient management systems.The existence of a framework of indicators helps to strengthen the financial and management control of farms, something which is indispensable in periods of crisis, while allowing the policy of change to be monitored.Our research work is based on such indicators, and aims to provide a framework of key performance indicators that will enable producer groups to analyse the technical, economic, and environmental aspects of their farms. We believe that the performance indicators we propose will help farmers to meet and assess requirements concerning the respect and improvement of the environment, and the pursuit of quality, sustainable farming, and competitiveness. Permanent monitoring of these indicators will also enable benchmarking to be carried out among farms and will provide a tool that will promote continuous improvement in the financial and agricultural management of farms.We believe that this scenario calls for the definition of agri-environmental policies based on cause-action-effect relationships between agriculture and the environment, with a view to achieving a continuous improvement in the system.
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