The Common Agricultural Policy reform 2013–2020 has conditioned 30 per cent of the direct payments to greening requirements. Our study investigates whether one of these requirements, the ecological focus area (EFA) obligation, has led to environmental improvements while preserving farms’ economic sustainability. We apply a regression discontinuity design approach on a sample of Italian arable crop farms. Our results suggest that the EFA requirement has no significant effects on farms’ application of fertilisers, pesticide expenditure, crop diversification or economic performance. However, farmers reacted to the EFA requirement by changing their crop mix, mostly by increasing their share of leguminous crops.

中文翻译：

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CAP 绿化会影响农场的经济和环境绩效吗？回归不连续设计分析

2013-2020 年共同农业政策改革将 30% 的直接支付作为绿化要求的条件。我们的研究调查了这些要求之一，即生态重点领域 (EFA) 义务，是否在保持农场经济可持续性的同时改善了环境。我们对意大利可耕种作物农场的样本应用回归不连续设计方法。我们的研究结果表明，EFA 要求对农场的化肥施用、农药支出、作物多样化或经济绩效没有显着影响。然而，农民对 EFA 要求的反应是改变他们的作物组合，主要是通过增加豆科作物的份额。