Farming Practices and Experienced Policy Coherence in Agri-environmental Policies: The Case of Land Clearing in Finland

Abstract

Environmental problems related to agricultural land use require better functioning solutions. Pressing problems include the increasing nutrient load in water bodies, caused by fertilization and erosion, and carbon emissions caused by various agricultural practices, for example. At a policy level, these issues are tackled via agri-environmental measures, but at farm level, these measures have not attracted as wide support as hoped for. Instead, farmers feel that many agri-environmental measures are incoherent in relation to their practices and goals, and the goals of agricultural policies in general. This type of policy problem can be called experienced policy coherence and it results in poor functioning of the policies. This paper connects practice theory and policy coherence analysis and suggests that a more systematic focus on the practices which the policies aim at influencing is needed in order to design better policies and to approach the problem of policy incoherence experienced by grass-roots actors. The empirical focus is on clearing new arable land and climate emissions in the context of Finnish agriculture. The results show that the different elements of practices identified in practice studies can pinpoint the key issues causing experienced policy incoherence and malfunctioning of policies.

Key Words:

• Policy coherence
• practice theory
• agri-environmental policies
• local stakeholders
• land use
• climate change

Acknowledgements

Ms Hanna Mela is greatly acknowledged for her help with collecting the interview material. I also wish to thank all the interviewees and the people who have participated in the workshops and their organization.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Cultivation-related emissions from the land use sector, agricultural sector and energy used in agriculture combined.

2. Reprinted from Environmental Innovations and Societal Transitions, Vol. 12, Huttunen et al., The need for policy coherence to trigger a transition to biogas production, p.17, © 2014, with permission from Elsevier.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, project POLKEVA and the Academy of Finland [grant number 277896].