Assessment of Agri-environmental Scheme in Europe using AFI and its Implications on China's Sustainable Development of Agriculture

Abstract

The concept of agri-environmental policy and its evaluation have not been extended in China, however, it is the essential part of developing sustainable agriculture and complying with international standards, which are consistent with the direction of China's overall development in the future. The agri- environmental scheme in Europe is the product of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which strictly requires environmental standards and creatively encourages environmental-friendly agricultural activities such as Agri- environmental Measures (AEM). The paper uses data from Agri-environmental Indicators (AEI) and multi-criteria assessment method AFI to evaluate agri- environmental schemes in Europe. The result shows the improvement of environmental conditions collectively, but also reflects the unbalance of different environmental issues within the policy‟s consideration, as well as that of farmers‟ different level of agricultural activities. However, it provides with good policy implications and directions in the future. The result of European agri-environmental scheme's evaluation also sheds some light on China's relative measures in this area. With a serious situation of agri-environmental pollutions and lack of specific policy guidance, China faces with an austere status of developing sustainable agriculture. Using AFI and Chinese data resource to roughly estimate China‟s agri-environmental conditions, the paper came to the conclusion that China has the potential to improve. If effectively learning from the successful experience of Europe, speeding up in building agri-environmental scheme with an assessment mechanism, while trying to increase farmers' voluntary participation and enthusiasm with incentives, it would be optimistic to achieve agri- environmental goals, as well as the goals of harmonious development between population, resource, environment and the economy.