Communication processes in agri-environmental policy development and decision making

This book explores communication processes in the development of agri-environmental programmes at the state level in Germany. Communication encompasses participation, feedback and decision-making processes. As voluntary, incentive-based policies, agri-environmental programmes rely on the acceptance of farmers to achieve positive effects. If ‘acceptance’ is a political aim, contents and implementation of programmes must meet the preferences and needs of farmers. Consequently, these preferences and needs must be fed back into the programme development phase as early as possible. However, institutionalised feedback mechanisms and interactive forms of participation are lacking normally. Acknowledging the bureaucratic constraints, the author proposes a participatory approach that contributes to the improvement of acceptance and legitimacy of agri-environmental decision making. The approach also helps to increase effectiveness and efficiency of related communication processes. It does so by improving procedures in terms of fairness and transparency, as well as improving the information basis by including feedback about agri-environmental schemes through participation. Based on action research experiences in Sachsen-Anhalt in Germany benefits and shortcomings of the approach are discussed.