ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of the goals of agricultural and environmental policy. They attempt to show whether and where possible conflicts between those goals may occur. The authors show potential conflicts between sustainable agriculture, on the one hand, and the principles of free trade, on the other. The reasons have been deduced from the fact that sustainable agriculture seems to produce such social and environmental benefits to society to make them eligible for policy rewards. The authors aims to list the environmental and agricultural policy instruments that meet the two goals—that is, to guide Austrian agriculture towards sustainability and to meet the requirement of conformity with the world trade order. Since the mid-1980s, Austrian agricultural policy has been regarded as 'eco-social'. The concept of an eco-social agricultural policy comprises the some goals, namely economic productivity, ecological orientation and social balance.
