Payments for ENvironmental Services: an Evidence-based Evaluation (PENSEE)

We aim to evaluate the agro-environmental measures (“MAE”) setup by the Ministry of the Environment in France between 2000 and 2014. MAEs aim to provide farmers with an income in exchange for providing an environmental service. We will here focus on three MAEs: *Support for extensive livestock farming. *Support for reducing the use of plant protection products and *Support for reducing nitrate use. We will also study the compensatory subsidy for natural handicaps (ICHN), which is given conditional to environmental criteria. We will evaluate the effect of MAEs using the four following questions: 1. Do they improve practices? 2. Are the costs for setting up “environmental activities” stemming from the MAEs actually covered by the support schemes? 3. Do MAEs have an impact after costs stop being covered by the scheme (i.e. at the time the support comes to an end)