Is agricultural policy promoting a new role for farmers?: a case study

European Agenda 2000 considers the integration of environment in CAP and the role farmers can play on natural resources management. Alternative tillage technologies to seed cereals play an important economic and environmental role on the development of a sustainable agriculture and its adoption may depend on the agricultural policy, particularly policies on income support. The results obtained clearly show that the use of alternative soil tillage technologies would be promoted by the change of supports from the first to the second pillar of CAP and we can conclude that, in general, this change will encourage a faster technological adoption. (c) 2006 Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.