Analysis of the environmental and economic performance of common agricultural policy eco-schemes in soil organic carbon sequestration

The Andalusian olive grove in South Spain is employed as a case study to assess the environmental and economic effects of the green architecture (eco-schemes) of the Common Agricultural Policy in relation to low carbon agriculture under different soil management policy scenarios to support more efficient agri-environmental policy making. To do so, we adopted a multidisciplinary approach in which we used: (i) an integrated modelling framework comprising geographic information systems (GIS); (ii) the RothC model; and (iii) a cost-benefit analysis. Results show that eco-schemes provide a significant increase of soil organic carbon (SOC) relative to cross-compliance. Practices involving vegetation covers are more efficient than using pruning residues as mulching. SOC accumulation increases rapidly in the first five-ten years to slow down afterwards. The cost-benefit ratios of eco-schemes policy implementation are higher than one when only SOC is considered. Nonetheless, the inclusion of additional co-benefits has the potential to invert this scenario and enhance policy efficacy. Various insights on optimizing the design and application of eco-scheme efficiency are provided.