Brussels, 20/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - European Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos said on Thursday 19 January that he was faced with a false debate regarding his proposal to impose environmentally-managed areas on farmers - an idea that was ill received by a number of countries, especially Germany.
Taking part at the German agricultural fair, the Green Week in Berlin, Ciolos said he felt the debate surrounding the 7% non-production greening area was incorrect.
In its proposal on reform of common agricultural policy (CAP), the Commission intends to link aid to farmers to measures in favour of greening, including the obligation of maintaining areas for the safeguard of biodiversity or elements of the landscape (hedges, trees, etc) on at least 7% of arable land. The commissioner explained: “We are not suggesting that 7% of land used for farm production should be placed on set-aside”. “We shall encourage farmers to manage areas that hitherto they did not manage”, he added. “Farmers will not necessarily need to set aside areas of land used for production”, if, for example, wooded areas on their farms are enough to reach the 7% quota, he said, considering that it was “not in anyone's interest to cause conflict between farm production and the concern for sustainability”. Ciolos trusts that the talks on CAP reform will be concluded under Irish presidency, early 2013. The new measures for the reformed CAP are to take effect in 2014, with application until 2020.
The powerful federation of German farmers, DBV, which considers the 7% proposal as “set-aside bulimia”, has launched a petition against the idea and trusts that German representatives will take up the issue. For Germany, this would mean that 500,000 to 600,000 hectares may not be cultivated, DBV states, making five million hectares throughout the European Union. (LC/transl.jl)