ABSTRACT
Introduction Significant advances have been made in recent years both in Europe and in North America in the analysis and understanding of agri-environmental policies. By agri-environmental policies we refer to the wider set of instruments that transcend beyond traditional price or income support policies to include explicitly environmental dimensions of agriculture and alternative land use patterns. While land use issues in some ways tend to be more pressing in Europe than in the United States as a whole because of different spatial exigencies overall as well as major institutional (legal) and cultural differences, we contend that this setting makes a comparative analytical perspective across the Atlantic especially valuable. Fundamentally, the biophysical and ecological relationships of interest to scientists are essentially identical on these two different continents. Furthermore, because the advances described here tend to occur within individual academic disciplines, an important loss of synergies occurs and efforts often are duplicated. Thus, while important institutional and legal differences exist between the two continents, we believe that the sharing of recent scientific advances will benefit scientists on both sides of the Atlantic. The primary features of the book are threefold. First, we identify options for policy to overcome the challenges ahead related to future agri-environmental policies. Second, we synthesize existing knowledge and identify gaps in current knowledge along with future research needs. Finally, we explicitly compare agri-environmental interactions and approaches to their resolution in Europe and in the United States.
