‘Has the CAP contributed positively to maintaining and enhancing biodiversity?‘ The European Court of Auditors – in Special Report no. 13/20 (1) – analyzes the impact of instruments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) against the objectives of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 (published in 2011). Which has been updated by, among other things, Notice 20.5.20. The European Commission’s stated commitments are insufficient to ensure achievement of Strategy Goal 3.a, to conserve and increase farmland biodiversity. Insight.
EU Biodiversity Strategy, Objective 3.a
Goal 3.a of the EU Biodiversity Strategy is still a long way off, the Court warns. And it is necessary to ensure that the 2021-2027 CAP-now under negotiation-actually guarantees the maximum extension of agricultural land under grassland, arable land and permanent crops. In the face of the need to ensure both the improvement of species and habitats dependent on agriculture (i.e., linked to its effects) and the promotion of more sustainable management of rural environments.
Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse are closely linked to the climate emergency, as noted. And they represent major threats to the survival of the planet in the coming decades, in terms of both probability and impact. As was noted, but without proposing any suitable solution, at the World Economic Failure (or Forum, depending on your point of view) in January 2020.
A recent study by the European Environment Agency (2019) confirmed that the intensification of agriculture in recent decades has been a major cause of the reported problems. As they demonstrate:
– the Farmland Bird Index, an index of avifauna in agricultural areas (-34% of common species in agricultural areas, from 1990 to 2017); and
– The European Grassland Butterfly Index. These bioindicator insects have almost halved in a quarter century (-39%, from 1990 to 2017), although the die-off has almost stabilized, since 2013.
The latest reports under Natura 2000 (although the project is not yet completed) and the Birds and Habitats Directives in turn record a dramatic increase, from 69 percent to 72 percent, of habitats with an ‘unfavorable’ conservation status.
CAP 2014-2020 and Biodiversity Strategy, what coordination?
The Court assessed whether Goal 3a of the Strategy to 2020 was specific, measurable and achievable, relevant and accompanied by a deadline. What if the 2014-2020 CAP was consistent there. First weakness, the policies in question refer to different time frames. CAP and EU budget follow a 7-year cycle, Biodiversity Strategies cover 9 or 10 years. The greatest shortcomings were found to be in the areas of achievability, relevance and measurability (in fact, the 2011 Strategy had a deadline, set at 2020, and covered specific measures).
There are no accurate and current indicators to assess the progress of actions. Of the 13Streamlined European BiodiversityIndicators (SEBI), the Commission has updated only five regularly. For the remaining 8, however, the latest data is from 2014 at the latest.
The concept of ‘High NaturalValue’ (HNV) agricultural area had been introduced by the European Commission, in 2005, to monitor areas characterized by low-intensity agriculture. But the Commission itself – given the substantial lack of data on the extent of HNV areas in the latest rural development reports (June 2019) – has decided to exclude it from the post-2020 CAP.
In the absence, among other things, of the Biodiversity Strategy’s planned coordination with Goal 2. Restoration of 15% of degraded ecosystems.
The accounts that don’t add up
The share of the general EU budget devoted to biodiversity, according to the ECA, was determined on the basis of unreliable coefficients (by ‘adaptation’ to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD ‘Rio markers’). In the 2014-2020 CAP, the Commission says it has dedicated 8.1 percent of the EU budget, or €86 billion, to biodiversity, but since 2017 the Court has been complaining about the ineffectiveness of support.
Direct greeningpayments , for example, incentivized changes in farming practices in only 2 percent of arable land and 1.5 percent of permanent grassland. The overall failure of the Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 with respect to Target 3a had, moreover, been reiterated by the European Commission itself in the 2015 mid-term review.
Direct payments, what impact on biodiversity?
Most EU direct payments have no measurable direct impact on farmland biodiversity, the ECA notes. Indeed, according to some experts, optional coupled payment would have negative consequences. To the extent that there is an incentive to increase funded activity levels related to the production of specific crops or animals.
On the other hand, the varied framework of rules and penalties does not guarantee uniform application of the criteria on direct payments. Small farmers, for example, are not liable for the 1 percent to 5 percent reduction that should be imposed in cases of non-compliance with the statutory management requirements (SMRs) and standards for good agricultural and environmental conditions (GAEC). The latter, in turn, vary from country to country.
With the 2013 CAP reform, crop rotation was changed to crop diversification. Which rarely results in a benefit to biodiversity because it does not involve a change in agricultural practices. And it has become an eligibility requirement, no longer a cross-compliance, also reducing the number of farmers to whom it applies.
Greening was supposed to incentivize biodiversity conservation, but currently only 5 percent of areas have undergone changes in farming practices (the scheme does not apply to small farmers, organic farms and those who hold more than 75 percent permanent grassland).
The European Commission, in 2017 and 2018, stressed that states would have to make greater efforts to ensure their progress and achievement of the goals (as mandated by Action 8a of the Strategy to 2020). But only four member states or their regions (Luxembourg, Latvia, Czech Republic, Belgium-Flanders) have defined some areas set aside for permanent grassland as an ‘environmentally critical area,’ out of less than 300 thousand million hectares of farmland in the Union.
The absence of valid impact or outcome indicators of cross-compliance and greening on farmland biodiversity available to the Commission makes it impossible, again as above, to properly assess the level of biodiversity protection.
The potential of Pillar II CAP.
Environmental agro-climatic measures , organic farming and Natura 2000 appear to be the most effective rural development program measures for biodiversity protection, according to the national authorities visited. Potentially capable of fulfilling Action 9 of the 2011 Strategy, ‘better target rural development to conserve biodiversity’.
However, farmers tend to apply less demanding but low-impact measures (the ‘light green measures’). Rather than high-impact ones (the ‘dark green measures’), which are more onerous, specific and complex but the subject of increased funding. And there also appears to be little effort toward improvement on arable land, which is associated with much of the blame for the decline in biodiversity.
Only 2 of the 46 agro-climatic environmental measures established are outcome-based, the remainder on land management. According to the Court and experts, the former have greater impact on the conservation and increase of biodiversity. They ensure more room for choice for farmers with respect to how they use their land and, most importantly, hold them accountable by binding them only to results. Not to mention the increased public recognition of their role.
It is, in any case, difficult to assess the impact of rural development plans because, again, there is a lack of appropriate indicators in the 2014-2020 CAP Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. In 2006, the Commission had added 28 more agri-environmental indicators, but these have not been regularly updated, some not even published.
The recommendations of the Court of Auditors
The decline of biodiversity in farmland is a certain fact, despite the difficulty in measuring its degree and the impact of the Strategy’s actions until 2020. International commitments regarding the Convention on Biological Diversity and the respective Aichi Targets have not been met. If by 2030 it is intended to achieve Goal no. 15 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in UN Agenda 2030, ‘Life on Earth,’ a transformation is needed. The Court of Auditors makes four recommendations, addressed to the European Commission:
1) Direct payments account for 70 percent of EU agricultural spending, but their impact on biodiversity is limited, if not negative. Concrete and measurable actions are needed in the post-2020 CAP, in synergy with member states, to fully realize the Agriculture objective of the new Strategy to 2030. It will also be crucial to review how budget funds allocated for biodiversity are recorded and the penalty system (2023 deadline),
2) The post-2020 CAP must increase direct payments related to environmental public goods, especially biodiversity. Bearing in mind that currently rural development tools have had the greatest impact on biodiversity conservation in farmland (2023 deadline),
3) Increase the contribution of rural development, given its greater potential compared to direct payments, and ensure that National Rural Development Plans include actions for biodiversity on farmland (deadline 2023),
4) Introduce good indicators to assess the results and impacts of Pac instruments on farmland biodiversity (2022 deadline).
The Commission’s answers
The European Commission had already identified these shortcomings in its evaluation report on the impact of the CAP on habitats, landscapes and biodiversity (2019). Emphasizing how, in addition to insufficient use of CAP tools, the design and funding of agro-climatic environmental measures for intensive farms still fail to incentivize the introduction of useful management changes to protect biodiversity.
In its response to the ECA, however, Brussels argues that coordination with member states would be adequate and the instruments of the CAP would have allowed for many improvements at the local level. Without providing any evidence for this, except to acknowledge that at a general level biodiversity is of serious concern.
The future CAP, the Commission continues, will be more outcome-oriented with suitable indicators. But he points out that they are not the only ones that can be used, and in some cases such as agricultural areas of high natural value, a single index is inappropriate given different data availability and different physical situations.
The claim of overestimation of biodiversity expenditures is not demonstrable, and the coefficients used by the Commission would be duly developed in the absence of an OECD-validated method. And the voluntary coupled payment scheme, which was notified to the World Trade Organization (WTO) under the blue box, would not have a negative impact on biodiversity because it is targeted to specific products and in distressed situations. Also unjustified, according to the Commission, is the complaint against cross-compliance, which is entirely associated with a positive impact on biodiversity.
There are no ‘light green’ or ‘dark green’ measures; the Court has slipped into oversimplification, the Commission insists. What is more, the reduced application of the latter is mainly due to their application in limited and specific areas.
Fundamental to follow the logic of the Commission’s thinking is the notion that direct payments are not aimed at biodiversity protection (except for greening), but, undoubtedly, ‘wide adherence to such measures by farmers allows for increased awareness regarding environmental standards through cross-compliance‘.
Future Perspectives
The new Biodiversity Strategy to 2030 declines the Agriculture goal as the need to allocate at least 10 percent of agricultural land to landscape features with high diversity. For example, buffer strips, complete fallow or with rotation (introduced in 1988 but no longer mandatory since 2009), hedges, non-productive trees, terracing or ponds, also to prevent soil erosion, intensify carbon sequestration, and filter air and water. As well as new targets with respect to reducing chemical pesticides (-50% by 2050) and increasing the amount of land devoted to organic farming (+25% by 2030). Words, words, words.
Soil that is richer in biodiversity is usually also more productive. Agroecology will have to drive change, within which a privileged space is also left for the protection of genetic variety and pollinators.
Dario Dongo and Marina De Nobili
Notes
(1) European Court of Auditors. Special Report No 13/20. Biodiversity on farmland: CAP contribution has not halted the decline
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Graduated in law in Trento, she follows a master's degree in food law at Roma Tre. She is passionate about food and wine, she is between culture and tradition.
