Economic Valuation of Non-Commodity Outputs of Agriculture

Economic valuation methods have already been used abroad successfully for solving above all local and nation-wide problems in rural (and also urban) areas with incorporated multifunctional natural and cultural goods, in a sense of their cultural, recreational, educational, ecological, aesthetical and existential values. The existence of these goods, in our case for the countryside, increases the welfare of users as well as of non-users when goods are nationally or globally important. Since environmental and cultural goods are in fact public goods, their use is mostly free, while managers or owners have some maintenance costs, which are usually covered from the budget. It is quite clear that allocation and distribution of these sources has to be properly justified. The same holds true for individual interventions into the space. This article suggests contingent valuation methods as a helping tool for making decisions on economic activities and interventions to the area.