A team at CCRI, led by Jane Mills, and in collaboration with the University of Exeter has developed a set of indicators that can be used to assess the quality of land managers’ engagement with agri-environment schemes and the social outcomes from schemes. In gaining a better understanding of these engagement factors and social outcomes we can better understand land managers’ experience of engaging with their agreement and how this affects:
- their motivation to engage,
- the environmental outcomes delivered,
- whether they decide to participate in future schemes,
- as well as contribute to a broader understanding of how we assess the social sustainability of schemes.
The 2-year Natural England and Defra funded project involved a systematic literature review of 142 documents to identify a set of social indicators that are empirically and conceptually sound. A data collection method (focused on survey questions) was then developed that can operationalise the monitoring and evaluation of these social indicators. Finally, small-scale testing of the proposed method was undertaken on 19 farms with existing agri-environment schemes to provide a ‘ground truth’ of its practicality and validity.
The project produced the following list of 20 high-level social indicators and their sub-indicators (see below).
The reports have now been published on the Defra website and can be downloaded via the following links:
Final Report: LM0478_Social_Indicators_FRP (2475k)
Literature Review: LM0478_Social_Indicators_Evidence_Review_Report (942k)
Two Page Summary: LM0478_Social_Indicators_TPS (828k)
