Policy Measures for Ecosystem Services: a first survey of the impact of "Floor and Trade" mechanism at farm level in Veneto

In the ongoing debate of CAP reform, a new tool was proposed for farms that aims to create a new market for ecosystem goods and services that may be provided by agriculture. The mechanism of floor and trade (FT) assigns each holding a "minimum of environmental goods" that must be provided at farm level to ensure sustainability and justifies the subsides received from CAP. In this proposal we will analyse what might happen in a limited region (Veneto) with the application of FT mechanism, given the geographical conditions and the structural situation of farms, using FADN data. More precisely, we seek to quantify the regional supply curve of environmental services, provided by agricultural activities in case of floor and trade mechanism. We will use as a proxy the amount of carbon that could be sequestered by less intensive farming systems such as grassland and pastures, compared with other more intensive activities, in order to examine the trade-off between the economic goals of farmers and the environmental benefits due to the land use change provided by FT. We will use as methodology the Minimum Data (MD) approach in order to integrate the spatial heterogeneity of the biophysical environment of the different agroecosystems, with economic behaviour of farmers in case of the obligations imposed by the FT mechanism