This paper presents a case study on the development and implementation of a decentralised and outcome-based agri-environmental payment scheme in a project region in central Germany. A research group from Goettingen University together with local actors designed the scheme which complies with the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy. The core of the programme is the creation of a market for ecological goods, in this case: of plant diversity standards in agriculture. Supply is provided by the local farmers, who, in an open competitive bidding, offer to produce as much as they are willing to of the commodity in question. The local population has to be seen as the beneficiary of these environmental goods. In the project, it is represented by a Regional... |