A governance perspective on agri-environmental schemes: Actors, roles, and barriers

Agri-environmental schemes (AES) carry significant environmental expectations. However, their environmental performance has often been questioned. Existing research has tackled the issue from ecological and economic perspectives. This study aims to provide a complementary governance perspective. It first develops a theoretical framework to analyze AES governance through a multilevel lens, identifying three distinct levels based on different actors' roles: macro (setting policy boundaries), meso (implementation of the policy framework), and micro (farmer actions). Second, this study develops an analytical framework to investigate barriers hindering AES environmental performance and their linkage to AES governance. The combined frameworks have been tested in a regional case study in the Hauts-de-France region. A list of 40 barriers is identified, spanning organizational, power dynamics, and financial issues. Barriers are not confined to farm or policy scale, distributing unevenly across governance levels, with different agencies across roles and actors in unlocking the AES performance.