Modes of Governance for Ecosystem Services in Bulgarian Farms
Modes of Governance for Ecosystem Services in Bulgarian Farms

Summary/Abstract: Despite growing environmental issues and increasing public and private interests, scientific studies on the management of agroecosystem services are at the beginning stage. This article incorporates the interdisciplinary New Institutional Economics framework and identify and assess diverse private, market, collective and public modes of management of ecosystem services applied by the Bulgarian farms. The study has found out that farms of the country maintain or produce a great number of essential ecosystem services, among which provisioning food and feed and conservation of elements of the natural environment prevail. A great variety of private, market, collective and public modes of governance of farm activity related to agroecosystem services have been used. There is significant differentiation of employed managerial forms depending on the type of ecosystem services and specialisation of agricultural holdings. Management of agroecosystem services is associated with a considerable increase in the production and transaction costs of participating farms as well as big socio-economic and environmental effects for holdings and other parties. Factors that mostly stimulate the activity of Bulgarian producers for protection of agroecosystems and their services are participation in public support programs, access to farmers’ advice, professional training, available information and innovation, received direct subsidies, personal conviction and satisfaction, positive experience of others, long-term and immediate benefits for the farm, and integration with suppliers, buyers and processors. A suggested holistic framework for analysing the system of management of agroecosystem services is to be extended and improved and widely and periodically applied in the future.

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