Perspectives for the agricultural support policy of Upper Austria untill 2020

The main question of this study refers to the possible role agricultural policy of the federal state of Upper-Austria will play considering expectable scenarios for the economic development of agriculture and forestry. As basic conditions changes on world agricultural markets are examined by evaluating the existing literature on this issue. Furthermore, conditions given by the projected common agricultural policy are introduced into the analysis. Against this background the scenarios developed had to take as premisses that the coming years up to 2010 will still be dominated by adjustments to world market conditions, and that also in the longer run hardly any positive stimulus can be expected from world markets. Scenarios calculated with the farm optimisation System FAMOS show that income from agriculture and forestry up to 2020 will decrease slightly in nominal terms. Developments for farms show some differences according to area characteristics and product orientation, but this does not question the overall picture. In real terms i.e. in relation to macro economic productivity and income developments the calcuated scenario therefore shows a further decreasing share of agriculture and forestry in overall economy.