Societal valuation of the extraproductional functions of agriculture

Abstract

The concept of agricultural multifunctionality summarises the multiple objectives currently facing the agricultural policy. This concept, which emerged during Agenda 2000 process of reform, reflects both the capacity of agriculture to produce a wide range of goods and services and the existence of a social demand for them, particularly due to public good character of some of them. In this context, if it is to serve the citizens of Europe well, the agricultural policy requires two kinds of corrective actions of policymakers – the identification of the public objectives that are to be achieved and a suitable choice of policy instruments to be implemented. To raise awareness about social demands related to public support for agriculture is regarded as being particularly important in the current context of agricultural policy reform. This paper thus deals with the first of these two objectives. It aims to identify important extraproductional functions of agriculture and to analyse the relative societal importance that citizens assign to the various possible extraproductional functions of agriculture in order to derive the background information about the social demand for non-commodity outputs of agriculture.

Keywords

• extraproductional function
• non-commodity outputs of agriculture
• social demand