Agriculture & Land Management

Latest in Agriculture & Land Management

• The PEGASUS project publishes its first Newsletter

  Welcome to the first newsletter of the PEGASUS project! It provides information on the project’s progress to date and details on the 34 case studies currently underway in 10 EU countries examining how to ensure the improved delivery of public goods and ecosystem services in different farming and forestry situations.

• Learning the lessons from CAP greening

  What is the most cost-effective way to encourage basic environmental management across the farmed countryside in the EU-28? Learning from experience to date in greening Pillar 1 of the CAP, this report considers a range of options to increase the environmental added value from greening.

• CAP greening: what are its environmental prospects?

  A significant injection of money was agreed for ‘green’ farming practices under the recent CAP reform. This report examines the environmental impact these measures are likely to have on the ground and concludes that Member States’ implementation choices appear to have much diminished the chances of the greening measures delivering significant additional environmental benefits.

• The Manual: Chapter 13 - Sectoral policies

  This is a chapter of IEEP’s Manual of European Environmental Policy. This chapter sets out the development of some of the most important links between EU environmental policy and other policy areas, such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, transport, trade, and so on.

• Space for energy crops – An assessment on the potential contribution of Europe’s energy future

  The overall energy potential that can be produced from growing dedicated energy crops on ‘spare’ land in the EU is low. This new report explores the potential for the additional production of energy crops in Europe on land not already used for food production, forestry, or providing other important services, and assesses some of the challenges associated with increasing output.

• High Nature Value farming throughout EU-27 and its financial support under the CAP

  This study reviews Member States’ estimates of the extent of HNV farmland and use of RDP measures and the CMEF indicators, then identifies future priorities for CAP support for HNV farming and discusses the support opportunities under the reformed CAP. It offers detailed new evidence about the combined effect of Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 CAP payments on the economic and environmental viability of a typical HNV farming system in three Member States.

• New report: High Nature Value Farming in the EU

  Member States need to make the most of the opportunities under the new Common Agricultural Policy if the declines in HNV farming, critical for meeting our 2020 biodiversity targets, are to be halted.

• Options for sustainable food and agriculture in the EU

  How should Europe respond to the increased demands on our food and agriculture systems arising from global population growth, changing diets, and competing demands on agricultural land? This report offers a view on how the EU could play a role in meeting these challenges in the coming decades and sets out some of the options which merit particular attention.

• Europe’s role in feeding the world in 2050

  IEEP presents views on how Europe should respond to the increased demands on our food and agriculture systems arising from global population growth, changing diets, and competing demands on agricultural land.

• Interactions between climate change and agriculture; and between biodiversity and agriculture in Europe

  What should be Europe’s role in feeding the world in 2050? This IEEP report for the European Parliament describes options for increasing the productivity of European agriculture whilst adapting to climate change, reducing emissions, and providing biodiversity and ecosystem service benefits from agriculture.

• Mobilising Cereal Straw in the EU to Feed Advanced Biofuel Production

  This IEEP report, commissioned by Novozymes, considers the existing barriers, environmental risks and opportunities and the potential agricultural policy stimuli needed in order to mobilise cereal straw for advanced biofuel production in the EU.

• Delivering environmental benefits through entry-level agri-environment schemes in the EU

  A new study of the 2007-13 agri-environment schemes across the whole of EU-27 provides the first typology of ‘entry-level’ agri-environment management and environmental objectives, plus a detailed insight into the design of entry-level agri-environment schemes and calculation of payment rates in seven Member States.

• Redesigning the CAP to deliver public goods

  As a contribution to the CAP reform debate, this report considers options for redesigning the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to maximise the delivery of public goods, particularly in relation to the environment and rural vitality.

• Costs of delivering environmental benefits through agriculture and forestry management

  For the first time, this report provides an estimate of the scale of funding needed to achieve environmental outcomes through agricultural and forestry management in the EU to 2020.