Research on land-related agri-environmental policies and their impact on agriculture and the environment usually focuses on individual policies in specific national and regional contexts. This study fills this gap by providing a global perspective on the effectiveness of various agri-environmental policies and their growth over time. We synthesize ongoing global studies that use large quantities of geo-spatial data and apply credible causal inference approaches. The focus is on evaluating public policies aimed at increasing biodiversity in grasslands, improving cropland soil conditions, and conserving forest cover. The analysis reveals that land use targeted regulations consistently emerge as effective in improving land conditions, while agri-environmental payments show more context-dependent outcomes. Governmental policies exhibit considerable heterogeneity in performance, influenced by economic, institutional factors, property rights, and policy stringency. For croplands, land use regulations are the most effective, leading to a 2.3 percent improvement in conditions per policy. Public agri-environmental payments also improve cropland conditions by 1.4 percent per policy. In grasslands, land use regulations result in a 9 percent growth in bird species richness per policy, though they also reduce potential protein production by 2 percent per policy. For forest conservation, both land use and agri-environmental regulations, especially agri-environmental payments, significantly contribute to conservation efforts. However, broad, untargeted habitat and biodiversity policies are generally ineffective, including for forest conservation.

Background paper for The State of Food and Agriculture 2025 – Addressing land degradation across landholding scales.