Farmers’ subjectively perceived that administrative transaction costs are of high importance for the uptake of agri-environmental programs with direct effects on the effectiveness and efficiency of these programs and the well-being of farmers. This paper empirically estimates private administrative transaction costs resulting from an uptake of the newly introduced grassland-based milk and meat program in Switzerland, based on farmers’ perceived administrative workload. Using ordered logit models, we analyze how the administrative tasks and farm and farmer characteristics influence the perceived administrative workload. We find that the time spent on monitoring or inspection tasks has no effect. In contrast, an outsourcing of program-related administrative tasks significantly reduces the perceived administrative workload. We also find that a better understanding of agricultural policy regulations significantly reduces the farmers’ perceived administrative workload. We recommend that public administration improve the communication of agricultural policy regulations, rather than investing in the simplification of administrative forms.

农民主观地认为，行政交易成本对于采用农业环境计划至关重要，直接影响到这些计划的有效性和效率以及农民的福祉。本文根据农民的行政管理工作量，根据瑞士新引入的以草原为基础的牛奶和肉类计划，从经验上估算了私人行政交易成本。使用有序的logit模型，我们分析了管理任务以及农场和农民特征如何影响感知的管理工作量。我们发现花费在监视或检查任务上的时间没有影响。相反，与计划相关的管理任务的外包显着减少了可感知的管理工作量。我们还发现，对农业政策法规的更好理解可以大大减轻农民的行政工作量。我们建议公共行政部门改善农业政策法规的沟通，而不是投资于简化行政形式。