Tag: agri-environment schemes

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Target-compatible Environmental Payments under the CAP – Economic Requirements and Legal Scope

This guest post is contributed by Prof. Dr. Rudolf Mögele and Prof. Dr. Martin Scheele. Prof. Dr. Rudolf Mögele is Honorary Professor at the University of Würzburg; previously, he was Deputy Director General at the European Commission, DG Agriculture and Rural Development, responsible for three Directorates (Legal Affairs, Audit and Assurance and Markets). Prof. Dr. Martin Scheele is Honorary Professor at the Thaer-Institute, Humboldt University, Berlin; previously, he was Head of Unit at the European Commission, DG Agriculture and Rural Development, responsible for conception and coherence of Rural Development.

Agri-environmental payments reflecting costs incurred and income forgone

In the discussion on the CAP, more and more attention is given to the importance and functioning of environmental and climate-related payments. Such payments are established by Article 37 of CAP-Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 under the name “eco-schemes”: Article 31(7)(a) provides that eco-schemes may take the form of “green” top-ups to direct payments while Article 31(7)(b) states that they may also be granted as compensation for additional costs incurred and income foregone.… Read the rest

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The development of Environmental Land Management in England: still a work in progress

We are pleased to publish this discussion of recent developments in UK (England’s) post-Brexit agricultural policy by Professor Ian Hodge of the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, UK. The comments here represent solely the views of the author and not of any UK government department.

Following Brexit, the UK has been developing its own approach to agricultural policy.  Agriculture is a devolved matter and so the individual nations are introducing separate policies.  In England, under the 2020 Agriculture Act, direct payments are being phased out over a seven year transition period and replaced by Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMs) under the slogan of ‘public money for public goods’.  The policy includes three schemes as indicated in Box 1: Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Countryside Stewardship (CS) and Landscape Recovery (LR).

Box 1
Three Environmental Land Management schemes

Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) will pay farmers to adopt and maintain sustainable farming practices that can protect and enhance the natural environment alongside food production, and also support farm productivity (including by improving animal health and welfare, optimising the use of inputs and making better use of natural resources).… Read the rest

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We need a British Ecosystem Services Policy not a British Agricultural Policy

We are delighted to bring you this guest post by Professor Ian Hodge of the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge on the topic of UK policy towards agricultural land after Brexit. The views expressed are his own and should not be attributed to any organisation with which he is associated.

Brexit requires the United Kingdom to develop its own policy towards agriculture and rural land to replace the Common Agricultural Policy. This must recognise the multiple benefits and costs associated with rural land use and promote the integrated management of rural land in the long term public interest through a British Ecosystem Services Policy (BESP).

The UK must have a new policy for rural land

Over the past forty three years, agriculture in the UK has been subject to the guidance and control of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). As it has lurched from crisis to crisis, it has evolved from a policy focussed primarily on securing European food security through intervention in agricultural commodity markets towards a broader-based, more nationally differentiated policy concerned with the support of farm incomes and the promotion of sustainable farming.… Read the rest

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The CAP and biodiversity

Two weeks ago I gave a talk at a biodiversity conference organised by Teagasc, the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority. The proceedings of this conference can be downloaded here. The title for my talk was ‘Could European agricultural policy do more to promote biodiversity?‘ In today’s edition of the Irish Farming Independent I have a short article which summarizes the talk. I reproduce the article below and also the presentation accompanying the talk.
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The 2013 CAP reform had three overall objectives: viable food production; sustainable management of natural resources and climate action; and balanced territorial development. The emphasis on sustainable management in the second objective was a response to the growing awareness that the twin issues of land abandonment and agricultural intensification lead to severe environmental problems which required an EU policy response.
Among these environmental problems is the growing loss of farmland biodiversity. The recent mid-term review of the EU’s 2020 Biodiversity Strategy concluded that the EU was making no progress towards its target to bring about a measurable improvement in the conservation status of species and habitats that depend on or are affected by agriculture.… Read the rest

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The cost of flat-rate agri-environmental measures

The Commission’s proposals to require shallow, one-size-fits-all, green measures across the EU as a whole in return for a green payment in Pillar 1 have been widely criticised as overly prescriptive, yielding limited environmental benefits (‘greenwash’), administratively complicated for member states and unnecessarily costly in terms of the trade-off with food production.

I reviewed these criticisms in a recent note for the European Parliament’s COMAGRI (link to appear when the note is published shortly). In the note I favoured a continuation of the past CAP reform trajectory in which a larger share of the CAP budget would be shifted to Pillar 2 in order to allow more ambitious and targeted agri-environmental measures (AEM). The apparent unwillingness of the Council of Ministers to countenance a larger Pillar 2 budget (presumably because of the difficulties created by the need for co-financing as well as due to political opposition from farm groups) is the biggest political obstacle to this approach.… Read the rest