The overall percentage of declared ecological focus areas (EFAs) on arable land is nearly double the 5% required at farm level, says the European Commission report published on Wednesday 29 March on the implementation of the ecological focus area obligation (see EUROPE 11749).
The Commission does not propose to amend Regulation 1307/2013 on direct payments by increasing the percentage of EFAs, the conclusions of the report state.
EFAs are one of the important elements in the greening of EU direct aid that was agreed in 2013. To comply with the EFA requirement, farmers with arable land exceeding 15 hectares must ensure that at least 5% is an ecological focus area devoted to ecologically beneficial elements.
The Commission notes that the overall percentage of declared EFAs on arable land is nearly double the 5% required. This has been achieved by relying mostly on productive and potentially productive EFAs: nitrogen-fixing crops, catch crops and land lying fallow. Other EFAs, including landscape features, contributed only slightly to the overall declared EFAs.
In 2015, 8 million hectares of land were declared as EFAs, representing 13% of the arable land falling under the obligation and 10% after applying the weighting factors (percentages may differ at farm level). In 2016 the figures were 15% and 10% respectively, with a slight increase of 130,000 hectares.
From a climate adaptation perspective, the introduction of EFAs “could help farms’ climate resilience, for example, through the increased provision of landscape features”, the report says. It also states that climate mitigation could be enhanced by increased use of leguminous crops and the resulting displacement of nitrogen fertiliser with nitrogen fixation.
The Commission will continue its reflection on the subject, including as part of the upcoming evaluation of greening. The evaluation will then feed into the next phase of modernising and simplifying the CAP. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)