After massive protests
The EU Commission wants to allow more lax environmental regulations for farmers
March 15, 2024, 5:48 p.m
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After violent farmers’ protests, the EU Commission is accommodating farmers and relaxing environmental regulations. This involves, among other things, the rules for brownfield sites, as the Brussels authority reports.
In view of the massive farmers’ protests in many European countries, the EU Commission has significantly weakened environmental regulations for agriculture – in some cases retroactively for this year. The obligation to set aside land should be eliminated completely; Small farms under ten hectares should no longer be checked to see whether they actually comply with environmental regulations. Crop rotation regulations should also be applied less strictly.
“The fallow land requirement will no longer apply from this year,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced at X. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen assured him of this. The Commission published a summary of their telephone conversation shortly afterwards. It says that the EU needs to “support more” farmers. The Commission will still publish the concrete proposals.
The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) currently stipulates that farmers must leave four percent of their agricultural land fallow. This should create areas for species protection. However, as a result of the war of aggression against Ukraine, the Commission had already suspended this regulation with the argument of securing food supplies. It should now simply be converted into an “incentive system”: “Farmers will be encouraged to set aside land, but without loss of income,” explained the commission.
Small farms are relieved
The new regulations will provide massive relief for farms under ten hectares, as they will not only be exempt from controls but also from penalties. This will have “actual and immediate” consequences for these companies, the Commission emphasized. In principle, farmers had to comply with environmental regulations in order to benefit from EU agricultural subsidies worth billions. At around 65 percent, small farms make up the majority of recipients of EU agricultural subsidies. However, the proportion of land cultivated by these farms was only 9.6 percent.
The crop rotation change that has been mandatory since the beginning of this year on 35 percent of the arable land is also to be replaced by a “variation” of crops. EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski explained that member states will be able to interpret the rules “according to regional circumstances” in the future. In contrast to monocultures, crop rotations – i.e. the alternation of different plants in the field – are intended to protect the soil or require fewer pesticides.
The regulation of the so-called minimum ground cover should also be relaxed, as the commission also announced. This currently states that at least 80 percent of the arable land must be covered within a specified period of time. Most of the changes would come into force in 2025, but some would also come into force retroactively to January 1, 2024. “For farmers, this means that they will not be sanctioned if they have not yet followed the regulations.”
Concern about climate and species protection
Environmentalists criticized the plans. “Instead of advocating for an ecological and social agricultural transition, the EU Commission is bowing to the agricultural industry,” explained Sascha Müller-Kraenner from German Environmental Aid. “With more flat-rate direct payments and no money for fallow land, retreat areas and species-rich meadows and pastures, it is driving climate and species protection in agriculture towards the wall at full speed.”
“The path that the EU Commission wants to take leads (…) past the target,” said the agricultural policy spokeswoman for the Green parliamentary group, Renate Künast. The proposals are “completely contradictory” and a reduction in environmental standards is unacceptable.