WTO agreement on agriculture: Potential consequences for agricultural production and land- use patterns in the Swiss lowlands

Abstract

Geografisk Tidsskrift—Danish Journal of Geography 109(2):131–145, 2009

A strong link exists between agricultural production and landscape. Globalisation (more open agricultural markets) will change agricultural production and thus landscape will change as well. In this paper, we address the following questions: (a) what economic effects can be expected with respect to agricultural production structures in a high cost production region such as the Swiss lowlands given a substantial development in the WTO; and (b) how does this structural change influence land-use patterns? We discuss the expected economic effects from a theoretical point of view and implement these findings in a spatially explicit normative programming model for a case study region in the Swiss lowlands. The results show a wide range of possible economically efficient outcomes depending on production costs and farmers ' preferences. Our results imply that, if production costs were to sink sufficiently, income maximizing farmers would focus on grassland based milk production. This would only lead to a modest change in the existing land-use patterns since our case study region is currently dominated by dairy farms. If production costs remain high, agricultural production would shift to more extensive production activities in order to maximize the sectoral income. In this case, the local landscape would change noticeably.

Keywords:

• WTO
• land-use change
• mathematical programming model
• GIS modelling