A multicriteria model for the assessment of rural development plans in Greece

In the last decades rural communities face the problems of ageing of population, high share of elder farmers and imbalanced distribution of farmers across age classes. The Rural Development Plans (RDPs) of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in European Union (EU) are the policy instruments that affect agriculture and the people living in rural areas. The RDP measure "Setting up Young Farmers" aims to fight the demographic problems of these areas. This study is an attempt to highlight the role and the impacts of RDPs and especially of the "Setting up Young Farmers" measure in the prefecture of Thessaloniki in Greece. To this end, a multicriteria mathematical programming model was implemented. This methodology was chosen using the Knowledge Brokerage Approach in the context of the LIAISE project, which proposes a set of support modules that are linked to the impact assessment process with a final goal to support future policies and design. The results showed that the "Setting up young farmers" measure achieved its goals to transfer land to young, trained farmers, to offset the set-up costs faced by young people when establishing themselves in farming. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.