Joint submissions, output related payments and environmental co-operatives: Can the Dutch experience innovate UK agri-environment policy?

This paper describes three relatively recent innovations in the Dutch agri-environment programme which have helped nature management to be contiguous with natural features allowing the landscape to be managed whole rather than piecemeal—and thus generate higher quality and greater scope in environmental management. The first two, joint submissions by neighbouring farmers and payments related to the level of environmental output delivered, are scheme innovations. The third, Environmental Co-operatives (EC)—clubs of neighbouring farmers that inter alia co-ordinate and help manage the scheme innovations—is an institutional innovation. None has an equivalent in the UK. Evidence from interviews with farmer and non-farmer members, policy makers, academics and other interested parties show the role EC play in overcoming some of the postulated problems of the two scheme innovations. Not all the problems have been overcome, and cost-benefit analyses have not been conducted, nevertheless there is sufficient evidence to suggest that these innovations have benefited all actors involved: farmers, the government, the environment and the rural economy. Analysis of UK agri-environment policy using actor network theory (ANT) suggests the UK government will need to show similar levels of trust in and commitment to the farming community before these innovations could be introduced in the UK.