Document Actions
Published: 09 Mar 2010
Continuous change
in agricultural land use directly affects
Europe's biodiversity. A new report by the
European Environment Agency (EEA) finds
that Common Agricultural Policy payments
could be used more effectively to support
High Nature Value farmland and help halt
biodiversity loss.
In Europe, agricultural
land use is currently characterised by intensification
of farming of better land and abandonment
or afforestation of poorer land. More traditional,
low-intensity farming systems that support
biodiversity, known as High Nature Value
(HNV) farmland, continue to disappear.
With an annual budget
of roughly EUR 53 billion, the European
Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)
is an important factor in shaping Europe's
agriculture. Its future role and objectives
are currently the subject of broad debate.
The EEA technical report
"Distribution and targeting of the
CAP budget from a biodiversity perspective"
stresses that EU spending could be better
targeted to support HNV farmland, thereby
boosting biodiversity. Despite recent reforms,
most CAP payments still go to the most productive
agricultural land and relatively little
is spent to support HNV farms, which often
have lower incomes.
All policy incentives
to conserve HNV farmland, including a possible
redesign of the CAP, have to be seen in
the wider socio-economic context of agriculture
and should take the delivery of ecosystem
goods and services into account. These include,
for example, food provision, water regulation,
carbon storage and landscape amenity value.
Significant differences
among Member States
The five case studies
included in the report (addressing the Czech
Republic, Estonia, Extremadura in Spain,
France and the Netherlands) suggest fundamental
differences in CAP implementation in EU-15
and EU-12.
In the three old Member
States studied, single farm payments constitute
over 85 % of total CAP expenditure and generally
favour more intensive production systems.
In the new Member States
studied, single farm payments (in the period
under study) amounted to just 60 % of the
total and were distributed more evenly across
different types of farmland.
The two new Member States
studied provide significant funding for
biodiversity-rich grassland and other types
of HNV farmland through rural development
spending.
Considerable farmland
in some of the new Member States is not
registered for CAP support payments. This
mainly comprises small farms and marginal
land where HNV farming is likely to dominate.
