Is the Greening Instrument a Valid Precedent for the New Green Architecture of the CAP? The Case of Spain
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
An interesting paper and effort to present the effects of Greening in Spanish rural areas.
Some general remarks:
- Authors did not use the format suggested by the journal.
An interesting approach but unfortunately the authors do not offer anything to the current discussion on CAP and its effects on the environment, farm income and territorial cohesion.
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A substantial income effect could not be expected simply because 30% of what some categories of farms were “entitled” to receive (depending on the payment calculation and the internal conversion model used in Spain), was made dependent on them complying with additional rules, I repeat for some of the farmers.
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In fact the differences found in the manuscript reflect the exisiting differences in the structural characteristics of farms and farming across Autonomous Communities. E.g. the obligation of 5% EFA existed only for farms over certain size, therefore, if in a specific AC, the area managed by farms larger that 15 ha was greater then more area was covered by this measure. The same holds for permanent grassland, if in an AC the areas of permanent grassland were more extended, then more of the area was protected. More over, protection of permanent grassland was one of the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions that existed since 2003, depending on the application framework applied by AC. Hence, nothing new is offered in the discussion by the authors. The only thing that could reveal a new element would be to examine which of the available options for EFA farmers have chosen and at what extend but this is not done by the authors.
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It is a rather risky assumption that the changes would influence the population of the area. a. The period examined is very limited for such a change to be expected. b. There are many factors influencing demographic changes. c. Greening in fact did not change substantially the amount received by farmers,
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Variable CO2 emissions-eq for the agricultural sector. What exactly did the authors use for that? Because if it is the overall emmissions form agriculture for each AC, then it is highly unlikely that any difference between the changes in each AC could be attributed to Greening. In order to do that the authors should use the breakdown of the inventory to see which one of the GHG sources in agriculture could be influenced by the specific Greening provisions, although in the case of permanent grassliand one should look in the Land Use and Land Use Change (LULUCF) category.
- Some specific remarks':
Location
Text
Comment
Page 1
Abstract
(2015 a 2018)
replace "a" with "to"
Page 2
With this reform of the CAP, in order to become eligible for Green Payment, farmers had to adopt certain agricultural practices that are beneficial for the climate and the environment and in line with the structure of their farms: a) crop diversification; b) dedication of 5% of the land to an Ecological Focus Area; c) maintenance of existing permanent grassland. The Green Payment is also made to all permanent crops.
A significant element, not mentioned here, is that this was conditional on a. farmers wanting to get the greening payments b. they managed an area more than certain acreage.
Page 3
In organic farming, showed that the CAP had contributed to lasting changes in farmers’ practices in the use of catch, cover and nitrogen-fixing crops [1]. However, regarding the maintenance of crop residues, fertilisation and compost application, few effects were found. In Spain as a whole, ecological focus areas remained stable, with an increase of just 0.73%, and the only aspect that was relevant was the marginal change in nitrogen-fixing crops (Graph 2).
What is the argument here?
Why are organic farming and AEMs mentioned?
Page 3
Graph 2. Ecological Focus Areas and rate of growth 2015-2019
I fail to understand the graph. What is 5% EFA and what is Total?
Page 4
As for the maintenance of permanent grassland, the requirement to maintain the proportion of pastures, support for organic farming and agri-environmental measures all played a key role in avoiding the conversion of pastures into arable land [1]. In Spain, there was a slight upward trend; the greatest increase took place during the first year of adoption of the CAP 2015 (Graph 3)
The Graph refers to what exactly? Greening or the overall effect.
Page 4
that a set of policies should be introduced to be based on environmental results (the so-called eco-schemes) rather than on meeting requirements
Eco schemes are not exactly that, there is a need to elaborate a bit more.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Detailed comments in the text
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
the topic of CAP, ecoschemes and greening impact assessment of the 2014-2020 policy (now 2022, not 2023 as you wrote) is very important.
The abstract is very poor, written with very little informations and without having followed the instructions for authors that give important suggestions on the organization of the abstract. This section of the manuscript is very important because, even in an open access journal, it represents the first contact with the reader. In your abstract there is nothing on the adopted methodology (even the Diff and Diff methodology that could also be part of the keywords), there is not a reference to the database used and not even the results obtained in brief. Reading your abstract does not make one person want to read the paper.
Besides of the fact that, as already mentioned, the current CAP has been extended to 2022 and not 2023, there is almost no mention of Spanish specificities in the introduction. Since you predict hypotheses of positive results, you certainly need to go into more detaisl for the Spanish context and environment, mostly for the Communities you analysed. Graph 1 is a practically incomprehensible spider graph and is not explained in the text, nor in any legend.
Where is the data for the species that represented a greater spread versus monoculture. It is important to underline how much actual acreage was converted to polyculture, with what species, also to understand what the ability of these acreages to fix carbon has been or will be. And the case of olive trees in Spain? The exponential increase of areas occupied by industrial agricultural models with superintensive systems? Everything needs to be explained, the work talks about Spain and the Spanish case needs to be explored.
It is mentioned in the caption (graph 1 and others) that the database is derived from MAPA but there is absolutely no explanation of what MAPA is, how it builds the database, on what basis of analysis, and over how long a period of time. The database is critical to give strength to the results achieved. Only in the final additional directions is it stated what MAPA is with a website to achieve it. Here, MAPA plays a key role in setting up the work and cannot be overlooked or relegated to a final nod. All of the analyzed data, summarized in tables that are clear to the reader, could be part of useful supplementary material for the reader.
Methodologically, in my opinion, the population standards cannot be given such a significant role. So as for the economic indicators. Greening, in 2013, was not designed to strengthen farmers' economies and rural demographics but predominantly for environmental reasons, to try to compensate with a payment the investment of farmers who receive money from Pillar 1 in relation to environmental policies (reducing monoculture, increasing rotations, meadows and permanent grasslands). Where is all this in your analysis? In my opinion it should be much more central and not at the same level as economics, etc.
The Diff and Diff methodology, which is widely adopted in economic studies, loses its meaning with these basic criticisms, so it is difficult to evaluate the results even when they are statistically significant (even with P<0.1?? ....10%?). The basis of the data is not well understood and the methodological goals are not agreed.
There are many editorial errors on the use of the bibliography.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have improved the manuscript considerably and their effort is commendable.
However, the problems persist
a. Selection of not appropriate indicators (Population, CO2 etc. )
b. Disregarding the fact that the same obligations were partially implemented before greening.
c. Not clearly distinguishing the effects of greening from other CAP elements in order to assess the effects of Greening.
And disregarding that diiferences in performance between CCAA could very well be explained by the structural differences among CCAA.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors, thank you for your efforts in extensively revising the manuscript. Now it is more comprehensible, also in relation to the database you used and the methodology you adopted.
Captions of tables should be more descriptive, not so synthetic. We should be able to understand the content just by reading the captions without reading the section in the manuscript.
Graphs should be Figures. Same criticalities for the captions
Line 262-265 - it is a little bit confusing, the sentence needs to be clarified
Line 318 - 349: The environment was the key vector for the EU and this should be emphasized. You continue to put economic and demographic issues before environmental issues. You have explained more in the introduction but in the discussion, there remains an approach as the three issues would be of equal importance
Line 351 - 365: These statements need more detail. It would be necessary to make an analysis by farm dimension, considering that this is very important data to define the impact of the CAP on the rural territory. Recent data from the European Court has shown that 80% of CAP funds are received from 20% of farms. In this sense, small farms are not able to play a very significant role in the improvement of environmental sustainability and towards the ecological transition while there are few of these farms that can make a difference (I suggest a recent literature Ricciardi et al., doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00699-2).
Line 369 - 388: In this concluding section, I would still expect a more in-depth discussion of what is desirable for the Spanish rural world today and not just general indications of the failure of greening. Such a reflection is significant, especially at a time of European trialogue during which the future of the CAP is being decided.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Please find my comments in attached
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
If we consider what the manuscript is now reporting, at the end of the revisions, I think the title should be changed because it too much challenging and does not match with the content. The context is quite confined in some areas of Spain and the title does seem related to a wider context.
Many other aspects need to be revised in order to match with the Journal's requirements.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 4
Reviewer 1 Report
I would like to congratulate the authors for the significant improvement of their manuscript. While the main conclusion could not be challenged, the way they derived it, could. It has been greatly improved and the main problem i.e. use of parameters not fit for the purpose, has been resolved.
Some minor corrections:
Lines 69-71 Table 1. A more suitable parameter, in order to estimate the environmental effectiveness of crop diversification, would be to use the area covered and not the number of farms implementing it. I would strongly suggest to the authors to use area instead of number of farms.
Lines 123-125. Please check the sentence, there is an abrupt termination of the first part.
Line 163 Please consider using Utilized instead of Useful.
Lines 172-175. The authors should explain further what this Special Agricultural Regime is (even in a footnote). An educated guess could be that it is a special social security regime for temporary or permanent agricultural workers, but this is my guess.
