Multifunctionality of agriculture: an inquiry into the complementarity between landscape preservation and food security

Abstract

Without support, the levels of agricultural public goods such as food security and landscape preservation would fall short of demand in high-cost countries. However, as demonstrated by Norway as a case study, the current level of support is disproportionate from a public goods perspective, and the policy instruments are badly targeted at the public goods in question. Because agricultural land is a major component of both food security and landscape preservation, giving rise to a high degree of cost complementarity between the public goods, it would be more efficient to support land-extensive production techniques than production per se.