Multifunctionality of agriculture: An inquiry into the complementarity between landscape preservation and food security

Abstract

Without support, the levels of agricultural public goods will fall short of the demand in high cost countries like Norway, Finland and Iceland. However, as demonstrated in this paper using Norway as a case, the current support and agricultural activity is far out of proportions from a public goods perspective. Model simulations show that at most 40% of the current support level can be defended by the public good argument. Furthermore, the present support, stimulating high production levels, is badly targeted at the public goods in question. Since agricultural land is a major component of both food security and landscape preservation, thus giving rise to a high degree of cost complementarities between the two public goods, it would be more efficient to support land extensive production techniques, than production per se.Food security; landscape preservation; public goods; agricultural policy; numerical model.