Agricultural policies in OECD countries, which had treated farming as an exceptional sector that needs and deserves extensive state support, have been partially transformed by liberal and multi-functionalist influences since the mid-1980s. The ensuing post-exceptionalist policy arrangements entail significant tensions between old and new ideas, institutions, instruments, and interests. Related changes in relationships between the state and farmers, however, have rarely been analysed. To address this gap, this paper examines state-farmer relations in the implementation of direct payments in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2022, using Germany and the policy instrument that absorbs 75% of the CAP budget as a case. Based on the political sociology approach to policy instruments, we develop a framework to reconstruct the problematizations, subject constitution and modes of coordination underlying policy instruments along three levels of observation: instruments as institutions, techniques and micro-devices. An analysis of policy documents, legislative texts and policy artefacts finds that the differentiation of several direct payment components implies contradictory problematizations at instrument level: farm income, payment distribution, and remuneration of public goods. The techniques and micro-devices used to implement direct payments problematize eligibility and compliance with behavioural requirements. Hence, farmers are effectively constituted as dependent, only conditionally deserving beneficiaries and potential deviants. The non-hierarchical modes of coordination implied in transfer payments are overlaid by hierarchical modes involved in the setting of categorical and behavioural conditions and compliance controls. Analysing state-farmer relations therefore supplements earlier explanations for tensions created between non-aligned dimensions of agricultural post-exceptionalism.

CONTEXT: Farm typologies help to identify patterns across a wide range of farm systems and describe hetero-geneity in agriculture concisely. They can also support the design of agricultural policies by providing infor-mation and knowledge about policy target groups. For example, voluntary agri-environmental schemes could be tailored to specific agricultural landscapes and farm types. Farm typologies, however, are often developed from scratch, with limited connection to previous studies and policy making. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to clarify the purposes of farm typologies in research and agricultural policy making and to develop a framework that allows to increase the usefulness and usability of farm typologies for agricultural policy making.METHODS: Based on a review of 13 systematically identified overview studies on farm typologies, we develop a framework that establishes connections between the purposes of farm typologies along the different stages of the policy process.RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: We find multiple purposes for farm typologies, the two most common of which are for understanding the characteristics, heterogeneity, and development of farm systems and for policy making. The newly developed framework suggests that connecting knowledge across these purposes could improve the validity, transferability, and relevance of farm typologies for agricultural policy making. Our framework also provides an entry point for encouraging cooperation between developers and users of typologies, and for the improvement of typologies through new data (including behavioural data) and methods such as machine learning. We conclude that future research can build on the existing work on farm typologies but must be aware of the specific challenges that are associated with the use of farm typologies in the policy process.SIGNIFICANCE: Knowledge of the prospects and challenges of using farm typologies allows to increase the usefulness and usabilityof these typologies and can contribute to the design of targeted and tailored agricultural policy instruments. By increasing the acceptance, perceived fairness, and legitimacy, this can improve their effectiveness and efficiency, which is urgently needed for a successful transformation to a more sustainable agricultural sector.

Environmental policy integration (EPI), that is, the incorporation of environmental concerns in non-environmental policy areas, has been widely adopted in public policies. However, EPI research has found much discrepancy between environmental objectives and actual implementation. This paper argues that analyzing EPI in the context of policy mixes with multiple objectives, multiple instruments and their calibrations helps to better understand unavoidable tensions and limitations. We develop a framework to assess EPI at these three levels of policy output, synthesizing the EPI and policy mix literatures. We further distinguish four analytical dimensions to assess calibrations: stringency, specificity, flexibility, and temporality. A case study of the national implementation of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in Germany 2014-2022 is used to elaborate the conceptual argument. The CAP has saliently incorporated environmental objectives, while implementation, including the calibrations of most instruments within predetermined corridors, is left to member states. A systematic meta-review of 142 texts evaluating policy instruments and calibrations in the CAP 2014-2022, focusing on Germany, found that several CAP instruments link most farm income support to pro-environmental behavior. These instruments could potentially have high environmental effectiveness and efficiency. But actual policy calibrations delivered weak EPI due to low stringency and specificity, while high flexibility and temporal accommodation of farmers' needs might support EPI by increasing acceptance. Weak EPI resulted from instrument calibrations in the face of unavoidable trade-offs between competing objectives. Our results demonstrate that calibrations can significantly affect the strength of EPI adoption, and the priorities within policy mixes more generally.

Value chains that generate an increased willingness to pay among consumers by offering enhanced levels of sustainability are widely discussed as an important strategy for creating new business opportunities and fostering food system transformation. Previous research has highlighted the importance of governance arrangements to secure the trust necessary for the establishment of sustainability-based value chains. However, how different coordination designs by private and public actors along the value chain affect trust formation is not well understood. To address this question, this paper combines the concepts of hybrid governance and multidimensional trust to guide a comparative analysis of five sustainability-based agri-food value chains in Germany as exemplary case studies. The findings show that different types of governance activities are necessary to build the capacity to address four different sources of trust: dispositional, affinitive, rational and procedural trust. Building trust capacities facilitates coordination of activities along the value chain and reliable delivery of sustainability-related value propositions. In all five cases, governance arrangements and building of trust capacities were geared towards increasing willingness to pay. Sustainability-based agri-food value chains have therefore limited potential to internalize the agri-food sector’s substantial negative externalities.

EU budget and Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have closely co-evolved. Farm support requires large shares of the EU budget, enabled by a hybrid CAP discourse that combines productivist, market-liberal and multifunctionalist ideas for coordination and legitimation among diverse constituencies. Facing funding shortfalls after Brexit and complaints about the CAP's weak transfer efficiency and environmental effectiveness, the Commission proposed a 'new delivery model' and significantly reduced CAP spending. The ensuing process revealed the agricultural policy community's power to leverage the budget process to ensure desired policies; continuing dominance of producer-centred discourses among CAP policy-makers; and nested distributive bargaining games. Member states' positions reflected a mixture of ideational positions, financial net-payer positions and electoral considerations to avoid exploitation of rural-urban cleavages by right-wing populists. Neither Covid-19 pandemic nor European Green Deal transformed the CAP's policy pathway, budget structure or budget share because institutional and political opportunity structures favour continuation of established policies.

Fast die Hälfte der Fläche der EU wird landwirtschaftlich genutzt. Daraus ergeben sich vielfältigeWechselwirkungen zwischen Landwirtschaft und Umwelt. Die EU‑Agrarpolitik hat großen Einfluss auf die Nutzung der Flächen, trägt bislang jedoch wenig dazu bei, negative Umweltwirkungen zu vermindern. Mit dem richtigen Policy-Mix könnte sich dies zukünftig ändern.