Climate change, and particularly the increasing variability in rainfall, are expected to increase environmental risks in agriculture. We study the contracts for funding the investments on improved climate change adaptation practices and water quality enhancement solutions, of the Hungarian Rural Development Programme “Széchényi 2014-2020”. The farmers or the group of farmers funded are expected to update their irrigation practices and to combat nutrient leaching. Based on the monitoring data collected on this scheme we will investigate the economic and environmental effectiveness of this measure and formulate recommendations on new contract arrangements for better environmental protection. The call has been open since August 2016 and we have currently a sufficient number of signed contracts for analysis. EFFECT will analyse the criteria for selection of bids, uptake of practices and the effectiveness of the contracts. We aim to link monitoring data to farm account databases to analyse both environmental and economic aspects of the performance of the schemes. We will cooperate with the Hungarian Agricultural Chamber, as practise partner in EFFECT, and utilise their network to engage with the wider farming community and other stakeholders.
