Resource information
Our study examines the potentialdevelopments of cultural landscapes, taking intoconsideration various economic and socialconditions (scenarios). The study takes place inthree project regions which represent typicallandscapes in Southern Germany and Austria. Ineach project area, the influence of a changingeconomic and political framework is analysed. Thefollowing scenarios are defined: (1) status quo(current economic and agri-political framework);(2) high-producer prices and constant (or evenincreasing) direct payments; and (3) low-producerprices and no (or very low) direct payments. In allthree regions, potential production responses areestimated for all farms and aggregated on aregional level. The estimation takes into accountsocial and economic parameters such as cash flow,size and type of farms, age of farmers andworkload.The results show that the impact of the changingagro-economic environment differs in particular onthe level of the study regions. Due to a lack ofproduction alternatives, agricultural production ingrassland areas is very unstable – especially if siteconditions are unfavourable and economicconditions are disadvantageous. As a result, largescaleabandonment of agriculture is likely in lowyieldgrassland areas and consequences forlandscape appearance might be dramatic. In highyieldgrassland areas, agriculture is much morestable. However, under very disadvantageousconditions the extent of farms giving-up productionis as high as in marginal grassland regions.Nevertheless one cannot expect large-scale set aside,because remaining farmers use the possibility ofgrowth and lease a considerable quantity of land Incontrast to this, farm structure in the arable regionsis stable due to a high potential of productionalternatives. However, landscape appearance mayalso change dramatically in this region due to theincreasing importance of maize.
