Vincent de Leijster

76 Chapter 4 or alternate alleys with vegetation covers and bare soil, may optimize both environmental and economic objectives. Moreover, combining multiple agroecological practices, such as application of soil organic amendments and vegetation covers, may be an effective approach to improve ecosystem services without compromising on yields (Montanaro et al., 2010). In our study, CM management resulted in higher yields than CT while CM, GM and NT all improved different ecosystem services compared to CT (De Leijster et al., 2019). A combination of CM with vegetation covers may combine a wide range of environmental benefits and economic benefits, but additional empirical research is needed. In De Leijster et al. (2019) we demonstrated an interaction between management regimes and farms, concerning the yields. Farm based local differences in response to treatments may be explained by the farms’ characteristics. For example, on one of the farms GM improved yields compared to CT while on one other farm CM reduced yields compared to CT, which were opposite to what was found in other farms. In the current study, using the stochastic economic model, we used averages yield values and corresponding standard deviations in order to simulate an ‘average’ farm in the study region. However, because of the farm variability we would caution against extrapolating to all farms, as each farm will respond differently depending on soil type (Zingore et al., 2007), micro climatic conditions (Maetens et al., 2012b), presence of ecosystem service providing organisms (Luck et al., 2014), life history of the farm (Zingore et al., 2007), uncontrolled management differences of farmers, etc. Nevertheless, our results provide insights in the response of an average farm in this region and enables investigating market incentives that may alter the economic benefits of each management regime. 4.4.2 Public and private incentives According to Tilman et al. (2002), both public and private incentives can play a crucial role in the transition towards sustainable agricultural management. In this study we found that both public greening payment and price premiums can compensate for opportunity costs in Spanish almond plantations. Public greening payments of €321.30 ha -1 y -1 for GM, and €430.27 ha -1 y -1 for NT would be required to reach the breakeven point with CT income. To put this in perspective, the EU CAP allocates 30% of the total budget to greening measures (environmentally friendly practices other than agroecological practices) (Pillar 1; Matthews, 2013). The public greening payment that is required in the current study would be 5-7 times the current CAP’s greening payment, when standardized to hectare level, suggesting that much higher compensations are required than currently given in the European society. A previous study analyzed whether the 30% CAP greening payment would be sufficient to