A Joint Evaluation of Agri-Environmental Schemes and Organic Farming in the EU - Discussion paper

Abstract Within Pillar II of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy, agri-environmental schemes (AES) — delivered under the Rural Development Regulation through the agrienvironment-climate measure (Measure 10) and the organic-farming measure (Measure 11) — absorb a substantial share of public expenditure. These are two instances of the same class of policy, yet the applied literatures on Measure 10 and Measure 11 have evolved almost independently. This paper provides the first joint EU-wide causal evaluation of both on a common Farm Accountancy Data Network panel (2014–2020) under a single estimator that combines the double/debiased machine learning approach to difference-in-differences with staggered adoption (DML-SDiD). Identification draws on never-treated controls for Measure 10 and on not-yet-treated controls for Measure 11, reflecting the overlap properties of each measure’s candidate control pool. Disaggregated event-study estimates reveal that Measure 10 produces a windfall pattern for participating farms across four of five farm-type groups, with binding effects concentrated in specialist dairy. Measure 11 produces stable trajectories for livestock converters but a richer transitional pattern for mixed and crop converters, including sharp in-conversion reductions in synthetic input expenditure and a delayed post-certification income response. Keywords: Common Agricultural Policy; agri-environmental schemes; organic farming; causal inference; staggered difference-in-differences; machine learning Citation Brignoli, P. L., SCKOKAI, P., & VARACCA, A. (2026). A Joint Evaluation of Agri-Environmental Schemes and Organic Farming in the EU - Discussion paper. BrightSpace Horizon Europe project GA Nr. 101060075. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19738493 ----------------- Funding acknowledgement Funded by the European Union. Grant Agreement No. 101060075. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Legal notice This document was produced under the terms and conditions of Grant Agreement No. 101060075 for the European Commission. It does not necessary reflect the view of the European Union and in no way anticipates the Commission’s future policy in this area. The European Commission is not liable for any consequence stemming from the reuse of this publication. © BrightSpace, 2026 The reuse of this document is authorised under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CCBY 4.0) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed provided appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated. For any use or reproduction of elements that are not owned by the BrightSpace consortium, permission may need to be sought directly from the respective right holders. Project information BrightSpace Horizon Europe project Grant Agreement No. 101060075 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101060075 CALL: Innovative governance, environmental observations and digital solutions in support of the Green Deal WORK PROGRAMME Topic ID: HORIZON-CL6-2021-GOVERNANCE-01-12 EU agriculture within a safe and just operating space and planetary boundaries BrightSpace Project coordination: Wageningen Economic Research, The Hague, NL Contact: brightspace.wser@wur.nl | Website: www.brightspace-project.eu Project duration: 1 November 2022 – 31 October 2027.