Final Report J05/28/2007publ.ext.zalf.de/docs/Final_Report_SoCo-Pol_Rev.pdf · 2014-01-24 · Final...

Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) e.V.

Final Report

J05/28/2007

EU wide Review of Policies and Regulatory Environment Concerning Soil Conservation

Containing Deliverable D2.3 according to the Tender No J05/28/2007

Prepared by Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) e.V. Müncheberg

Prepared by : Thomas Kutter

Johannes Schuler

Dr. Katharina Helming

Dr. Peter Zander

13.06.2008

Final Report J05/28/2007 ZALF 1/126


List of abbreviations

CAP Common Agricultural Policy

JRC Joint Research Centre of the European Commission

MoA Ministry of Agriculture

MoE Ministry of Environment

NUTS Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics

MM Mandatory Measure

MSI Moral Suasion Initiatives

VIBM Voluntary Incentive Based Measure

ZALF Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) e.V.


Content

1. Executive Summary (Short)............................................................................................ 6 2. Executive Summary (Extended) ..................................................................................... 7 3. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 9 4. SoCo-Policy Review: Background and Purpose........................................................... 9 5. Conceptual Framework for Data Gathering and Review..............................................10

5.1 Classification of Policy Instruments............... ....................................................10 5.2 Classification of Attributes of Policy Instruments . ............................................11 5.3 Complementary questions ............................ ......................................................12

6. Technical Framework for Data Gathering.....................................................................12 6.1 The Online-Survey.................................. ..............................................................12

6.1.1 ‘Online”- Properties of the Survey ................................................................................. 12 6.1.2 General Properties of the Online Questionnaire ........................................................... 13 6.1.3 Structural Design of the Questionnaire ......................................................................... 13

6.2 Contributing Experts............................... .............................................................14 6.2.1 The concept of experts in the SoCo PolRev project...................................................... 14 6.2.2 Identification and Public Relations................................................................................. 14 6.2.3 Expert Database (Access)............................................................................................. 15

6.3 Data gathering ..................................... .................................................................16 6.3.1 Contributions to the online survey ................................................................................. 16 6.3.2 Time scheme of data gathering ..................................................................................... 16 6.3.3 The reminder campaigns............................................................................................... 16 6.3.4 Corrections on incoming data........................................................................................ 16 6.3.5 Literature review ............................................................................................................ 16

6.4 Data Administration ................................ .............................................................16 7. Process and Performance of the Survey ......................................................................17

7.1.1 Participation in the survey ............................................................................................. 17 7.1.2 Regional particularities on data gathering ..................................................................... 20 7.1.3 Data quality.................................................................................................................... 22 7.1.4 General feedback to the review project ......................................................................... 24

8. Results ............................................................................................................................25 8.1 EU-wide Overview tables ............................ .........................................................27

8.1.1 Soil Protection by Categories ........................................................................................ 29 8.1.2 Measure or result orientation of soil protection policies in the EU ................................ 30 8.1.3 Main target of soil conservation policies........................................................................ 31 8.1.4 Soil protection problems addressed by the policies ...................................................... 34 8.1.5 Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC).............................................. 37 8.1.6 Farming practices affected by soil conservation policies .............................................. 38 8.1.7 Compliance to Mandatory Measures............................................................................. 45 8.1.8 Effectiveness of Sanctions ............................................................................................ 46 8.1.9 Less Favoured Area Payments and Agricultural Soil Protection................................... 47 8.1.10 Amount of Compensation Payments ............................................................................. 48 8.1.11 Total Budget of Voluntary Incentive Based Measures .................................................. 49 8.1.12 Spatial uptake of Voluntary Incentive Based Measures ................................................ 50 8.1.13 Contracting period of the Voluntary Incentive Based Measures ................................... 51 8.1.14 Further Aspects of Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives ................ 52


8.2 Country Fiches ..................................... ................................................................53 8.2.1 AT - Austria.................................................................................................................... 54 8.2.2 BE – Belgium ................................................................................................................. 57 8.2.3 BG - Bulgaria ................................................................................................................. 58 8.2.4 CY - Cyprus ................................................................................................................... 60 8.2.5 CZ - Czech Republic ..................................................................................................... 61 8.2.6 DE - Germany................................................................................................................ 62 8.2.7 DK - Denmark ................................................................................................................ 65 8.2.8 EE - Estonia................................................................................................................... 66 8.2.9 ES – Spain..................................................................................................................... 67 8.2.10 FI - Finland..................................................................................................................... 68 8.2.11 FR - France.................................................................................................................... 70 8.2.12 GR - Greece .................................................................................................................. 71 8.2.13 HU - Hungary................................................................................................................. 72 8.2.14 IE - Ireland ..................................................................................................................... 73 8.2.15 IT - Italy.......................................................................................................................... 74 8.2.16 LT - Lithuania................................................................................................................. 79 8.2.17 LU - Luxembourg ........................................................................................................... 80 8.2.18 LV - Latvia...................................................................................................................... 81 8.2.19 MT - Malta...................................................................................................................... 82 8.2.20 NL - Netherlands............................................................................................................ 84 8.2.21 PL - Poland .................................................................................................................... 85 8.2.22 PT - Portugal.................................................................................................................. 86 8.2.23 RO - Romania................................................................................................................ 87 8.2.24 SE - Sweden.................................................................................................................. 88 8.2.25 SK - Slovakia ................................................................................................................. 89 8.2.26 SL - Slovenia ................................................................................................................. 91 8.2.27 UK - United Kingdom..................................................................................................... 92

9. References......................................................................................................................96 10. Annex ............................................................................................................................97

Annex 1. Glossary ........................................... ..........................................................97 Annex 2. Screenshots of the online appearance of the survey . ..........................100 Annex 3. Print version of the online-questionnaire .......... ....................................102 Annex 4. User Manual for the Questionnaire .................. ......................................115 Annex 5. Letter of verification of experts .................. ............................................122 Annex 6. First email reminder ............................... .................................................123 Annex 7. Second email reminder .............................. .............................................124 Annex 8. Third email reminder ............................... ................................................125


Figures Figure 1: Screenshot of the ‘welcome page’ of the SoCo_PolRev survey...........................100 Figure 2: Screenshot of the ‘complementary questions’ page of the SoCo_PolRev survey 101 Figure 3: Screenshot of an exemplary listing of measures according to a category ............101 Tables Table 1: Overview of invited and participating institutions.....................................................18 Table 2: Time spent by the experts on data contribution (numbers per time category) .........20 Table 3: Availability of the relevant information (number expert statements) ........................22 Table 4: Measures added or edited Zalf (numbers) ..............................................................24 Table 5: Soil protection policies by categories (number of measures per category)..............29 Table 6: Result or Measure Orientation of Policies (numbers per category) .........................30 Table 7: Main target of MM (numbers per category) .............................................................31 Table 8: Main target of VIBM (numbers per category) ..........................................................32 Table 9: Main target of IAM+PI (numbers per category) .......................................................33 Table 10: Soil Protection Problems addressed by MM (numbers per category) ....................34 Table 11: Soil Protection Problems addressed by VIBM (numbers per category) .................35 Table 12: Soil Protection Problems addressed by IAM+PI (numbers per category) ..............36 Table 13: GAECs implementation via soil policies (number of measures per category)........37 Table 14: Short term measures affected by Mandatory Measures (numbers per category) ..39 Table 15: Short term measures affected by VIBM (numbers per category)...........................40 Table 16: Short term measures affected by IAM+PI (numbers per category)........................41 Table 17: Long term practices affected by MM (numbers per category) ...............................42 Table 18: Long term practices affected by VIBM (numbers per category).............................43 Table 19: Long term practices affected by IAM+PI (numbers per category)..........................44 Table 20: Estimated percentage of compliance to MM (numbers per category)....................45 Table 21: Effectiveness of Sanctions for Mandatory Measures (numbers per category) .......46 Table 22: Soil protection implemented via LFA payments (numbers per category)...............47 Table 23: Compensation paid for VIBM (numbers per category) ..........................................48 Table 24: Total Budget of Voluntary Incentive Based Measures (numbers per category) .....49 Table 25: Actual and planned uptake of VIBM (numbers per category) ................................50 Table 26: Contracting period of VIBM (numbers per category) .............................................51


1. Summary

In the context of the study “Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation” (the SoCo-Project), an EU-27 wide inventory of the regulatory environment concerning soil conservation was performed. The EU Member States have implemented a variety of measures at national and regional level that regulate the use of soils and/or offer incentives for the adoption of soil conservation practices. The objective of this study was to derive a stock-taking of national and partly regional policy measures with relevance for soil conservation.

The methodological approach to the inventory was based on a voluntary online-survey directed towards relevant experts in national ministries and administrative bodies. Experts were asked to fill in information on all policy measures that are relevant for soil conservation in the agricultural context. Measures were grouped into three categories: “mandatory measures”, “voluntary incentive based measures” and “increasing awareness measures and private initiatives”. The quantitative survey was complemented by a qualitative part on personal perceptions regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of soil conservation policy measures. The results are presented in EU-27 overview tables, country fiches and databases.

Data were received from 53 institutions in 24 member states contributing with more than 400 data entries each describing one policy measure or a group of measures relevant for soil conservation. With the exception of Czech Republic, Lithuania and Spain, all Member States contributed to the survey. For countries with federal structure (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom) data were also obtained at regional level. Given to the voluntary nature of the survey, information per country did not necessary contain the complete list of policy measures relevant for soil conservation.

Soil conservation problems most frequently addressed by policy measures were “soil erosion by water” followed by “decline in organic matter”. Mandatory and voluntary incentive based measures frequently referred to the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) specified in the EU Directive No.1782/2003. Among the agricultural practices addressed by policy measures the most frequently mentioned were “cultivation methods”, “crop rotation”, “tillage” and the “use of organic soil improvers”. Mandatory measures were generally considered to have high levels of compliance with effective sanctions in practice and few implementation problems. Voluntary incentive based measures were mostly characterised by contracting periods of 5 to 10 years, a spatial uptake of less than 100.000 ha and a total budget of less than 100 Mio €, offering compensation payments of less than 300 €/ha. Increasing awareness measures and private initiatives were often based on bottom-up approaches from scientific and other agriculture related interest groups offering training and advice services as well as platforms for knowledge exchange to farmers and society.

Overall, the review provides detailed information on soil conservation efforts in the EU-27 member states.


2. Executive Summary

In the context of the study “Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation” (the SoCo-Project), a concise EU-27 wide inventory on the regulatory environment concerning soil conservation was performed. The EU Member States have implemented a variety of measures on the national and regional level that regulates the use of soils and/or offer incentives for the adoption of soil conservation practices. The objective of this study was to derive a stock-taking of national and partly regional policy measures with relevance for soil conservation. The results are presented in EU-27 overview tables, country fiches and databases.

The methodological approach to the inventory was based on a voluntary online-survey directed towards relevant experts in national Ministries and administrative bodies. Experts were identified utilizing networks such as the European Society for Soil Conservation (ESSC), the COST-Action 634 and via additional research. The contacts were established via email and phone. The experts were asked to fill in information on all policy measures that are relevant for soil conservation in the agricultural context in their country or region. Manuals and explanatory letters concerning the questionnaire were distributed. Three reminder campaigns were launched via phone and email to further encourage the participants and provide assistance when necessary. A supporting letter of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) was used to underline the project’s importance.

The online questionnaire was available on the internet for a period of eight weeks, from April 2nd until May 30th 2008, and could be accessed with standard web browsers without additional software. A server based database system linked to the online forms allowed the efficient management of data and facilitated their presentation. Official closure of the survey was April 30th, but most countries demanded time extensions. The questionnaire employed had a comprehensive structure. Policy attributes questioned were e.g. “Name of the Policy”, “Year of Implementation”, “Spatial level of impementation”, ”Main target”, “Soil protection problems adressed”, “Agricultural practice affected”, “Estimated level of compliance”, “Total budget of the measure”, “Planned and actual uptake”, “Contract period” and the “Amount of compensations per hectare”. The questions were short, clear and easy to understand. There were no subliminal questions. Reply facilities were adequate to the desired output, met the language skills (English) and were easy to manage for the interview partners. Only the attributes “Name of the Policy” and “Year of Implementation”, had to be inserted into the online form.

The agricultural policies were grouped into three categories: “Mandatory Measures” (e.g. Cross Compliance, national and regional laws and regulations), “Voluntary Incentive Based Measures” (e.g. measures as part of the Rural Development Plans, national and regional efforts) and “Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives” (e.g. environmental farm plans, sustainable agriculture initiatives, codes of good agricultural practice). The quantitative survey was complemented by a qualitative part on the experts’ personal perceptions regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of soil conservation policy measures.

Data were received from 53 institutions from 24 member states contributing with more than 400 data entries, each describing one policy measure or a group of measures relevant for soil conservation. With the exception of Czech Republic, Lithuania and Spain, all Member States contributed to the survey. For countries with federal structure (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom) data were also obtained at regional level.

Given the voluntary nature of the survey, information per country did not necessarily contain the complete list of policy measures relevant for soil conservation. Not all participating experts stated to have had easy access to the information. Besides, experts did not always


describe single measures (e.g. planting of hedges, reduced tillage, restricted use of pesticides etc.), but often entire programmes containing a variety of measures in one dataset (e.g. Rural Development Programme, ÖPUL, MEKA etc.). Consequently, the inventory should not be treated as a complete list of measures, but rather serves as an overview on the nature of soil conservation policy measures existing in EU-27 Member States. Several experts proved to be very cooperative and engaged in involving further experts or coordinated data entries within their institution.

The design of a policy towards meeting certain measurable values (such as certain levels of toxins, nitrates etc.) or its engaging of farmers in certain activities (such as reduced tillage, limited cuts per year, establishment of linear elements etc.), is a crucial point for monitoring and farmers’ perception on regulative policies regarding soil conservation. Experts were therefore invited to classify their contributed policies as measure- or result-oriented. A clear dominance of measure-oriented agricultural policies could be recognized for the described mandatory measures (164 of the 215 described measures per category) as well as voluntary incentive based measures (139 of the 160 described measures per category).

Several soil conservation problems are adressed by each measure. The categories were “Soil erosion (water)”, “Soil erosion (wind)”, “Decline in organic matter”, “Soil contamination (local)”, “Soil contamination (diffuse)”, “Soil compaction”, “Decline in soil biodiversity”, “Salinization”, “Floods and landslides”, “Acidification”, “Offsite damages related to soil erosion”. The inserted 429 measures adressed more than 2 soil protection problems per measure leading to a total of 1079 entries. Most frequently “soil erosion (water)” (228 of 1079 data entries) followed by “decline in organic matter” (173 of 1079 data entries) were addressed.

In many cases, mandatory measures (165 of the 212 described measures per category) and voluntary measures (108 of the 155 described measures per category) referred to the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) specified in the EU Directive No.1782/2003. Among the agricultural practices addressed by policy measures, the most frequently used were “cultivation methods”, “crop rotation”, “tillage” and the “use of organic soil improvers”. Mandatory measures were generally considered to lead to high levels of compliance with effective sanctions in practice and few implementation problems. Some experts reported difficulties with implementing control mechanisms.

Voluntary incentive based measures were mostly characterised by contracting periods of 5-10 years, a spatial uptake of less than 100.000 ha and a total budget of less than 100 Mio €, offering compensation payments of less than 300 €/ha. Less than 20 % of all measures in this category were related to Less Favoured Area (LFA) payments.

Increasing awareness measures and private initiatives were often based on bottom-up approaches from scientific and other agriculture related interest groups offering training and advice services as well as platforms for knowledge exchange to farmers and society.


3. Introduction

This final report reflects the results of the project ‘EU-wide review of Policies and Regulative Environment” (J05/28/2007) done within the overall project ‘Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation (the SoCo Project)’. The SoCo-Project is performed in close cooperation with the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) by the Joint Research Centre's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) and Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES).

This report consists of a description of the methodology, the theoretical background, the proceeding and the results in form of EU-wide overview tables and country fiches. The annex contains the original and an edited database on soil conservation policies in the EU gained through an expert survey. The contact information and type of participation of experts can be found in the expert database. The present report follows previous reporting: Draft Methodology Report (11.2.2008), Interim Report (04.03.2008) and a Draft Final Report (16.05.2008).

Together with the report, three separate databases are provided: 1.) an expert contact database, 2.) a database with original entries of experts on soil conservation policies, and 3.) a final database containing edited policy data that are based on the original experts´ entries with smaller corrections with respect to editorial or classification issues and some additional entries from literature studies.

4. SoCo-Policy Review: Background and Purpose

The SoCo project ‘EU-wide review of Policies and Regulatory Environment Concerning Soil Conservation” is part of the EU study titled ‘Sustainable Agriculture and Soil Conservation through simplified cultivation techniques” that investigates the complex field of soil conservation practices, their environmental impact, relevant policies and farmers’ acceptance to regulative policies.

The review on soil conservation policies examines the differing performance and implementation facilities of Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) specified in the Directive No.1782/2003, Annex IV and implemented through Cross Compliance (CC) (in relation to SPS or SAPS in the new member states) and Measures as part of the Rural Development Plans (Directive No.1698/2005, Axis 1, 2 and 4 (LEADER)) as well as any national or regional policy of significant impo rtance (Laws, regulations, national and regional programmes, farmer’s initiatives etc.) by the stocktaking of the policy framework.

The review covers the EU and national/regional level. The current study is an inventory work that provides a catalogue overview on the status of soil conservation policies in all EU-27 countries by classifying policy measures and presenting data in form of EU-overview tables, country fiches and policy inventories.

Data on soil conservation policies in the EU-27 has been gathered by an expert survey mainly from the top administrative level (e.g. ministries of agriculture) in form of an online survey . An analytical framework for the design and content of the expert questionnaire and its online accessibility and linkage to an output generating database has been worked out and a manual on how to fill in the questionnaire has been elaborated. Mainly experts from national and regional ministries were invited to participate in the review. In some countries experts from the science sector were invited as well. The Project’s importance was underlined by an EU signed letter


Additional literature research was only done to a limited extent for particular countries (Netherlands, Lithuania, Spain, and Czech Republic), if very few or no data has been received by the participating experts.

5. Conceptual Framework for Data Gathering and Revi ew

The comprehensive framework developed by the ZALF project team consists of a Classification of Policy Instruments (see Chapter 5.1), a ‘Classification of Attributes of Policy Instruments” (see Chapter 5.2) and ‘Complementary questions (see Chapter 5.3). These three elements shape the conceptual framework for the questionnaire (print out version; Annex 3). The overview tables, country fiches as well as the database are organised according to this framework.

Interviewees were instructed in the use of these categories both within the questionnaire itself and with an accompanying manual (Annex 4).

For each measure a single sheet of the corresponding category is to be filled in the online form. If an expert would like to contribute data on e.g. twelve single measures concerning soil conservation 12 single sheets should be filled in.

5.1 Classification of Policy Instruments

The policy instruments were categorized into three main groups (Weersink 2002): Mandatory Measures (MM), Voluntary Incentive Based Measures (VIBM) and Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives (IAM+PI).

These three general policy options are aimed to motivate land users to take or to refrain from certain actions concerning their agricultural activities that differ in motivation, economic incentives, status and their way of implementation and performance control.

The information on policies and regulatory environment concerning soil conservation was gathered using these categories which are explained in the following:

Mandatory Measures (MM)

Mandatory Measures (MM) involve the government regulator, mandating socially desirable behaviour into law and then using reinforcement mechanisms such as courts, police or fines to ensure people will obey the law. The intention of a MM is to avoid and regulate pollution or ecological damage by declaring it illegal within a juridical system which is designed to stop illegal behaviour. The rate of auditing and control visits varies according to the regulator’s (state authority) budget. Performance standards impose limits on the acceptable level of pollutants while design-based standards dictate the type of equipment or operating practices that can be employed. Mandatory Measures are popular because of their simplicity and their direct nature. Clearly specified targets are set, and regulations are specified to control the problem. However, in some cases it becomes difficult to set the standard. Furthermore, a lack of resources of public entities to ensure sufficient compliance has to be faced.

Examples for MM:

- Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) as implemented in relation to Cross Compliance (CC) for SPS, and according to SAPS in the new Member States)

- National and regional laws and regulations


Voluntary Incentive Based Measures (VIBM)

Limited success of Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives and Mandatory Measures has led to the use of Voluntary Incentive Based Measures. In contrast to direct regulations, incentive mechanisms indirectly influence firms’ actions by providing financial incentives for pollution reduction or environmentally friendly practices or raise the price of polluting inputs. For this reason, such measures are commonly referred to as ‘economic instruments”.

Examples for VIBM

- Measures as part of the Rural Development Plans (Directive No.1698/2005, Axis 1 (‘Improving the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry sector”), Axis 2 (‘Improving the environment and the countryside”) and Axis 4 (‘LEADER”))

- National and regional efforts.

Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives (IAM+PI)

Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives (IAM+PI) aim at the promotion of environmental-quality objectives and a sustainable agricultural system. The compliance is voluntary and the programmes try to raise land users’ awareness of the contribution of their current practices to environmental problems and their awareness of best management practices to reduce these problems. The possible benefits of the alternative practices are also promoted. Since rather the individual’s sense of civic duty than specific soil degradation problems are addressed, IAM+PI are quite popular among producers and regulators. Furthermore, they are relatively inexpensive to implement. Since these strategies are not only targeted to one pollutant, they can have a spill-over effect. It is expected that farmers would like to change their practices if they truly believed that those practices had a detrimental effect on the environment.

Examples for IAM+PI:

- Environmental farm plans - Sustainable agriculture initiatives - Good practices - Environmental workshops - Private initiatives

5.2 Classification of Attributes of Policy Instruments

Based on the classification of the soil conservation policies studied in this review into three categories (Mandatory Measures, Voluntary Incentive Based Measures, Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives), the additional attributes assigned to each policy allowed for a clear description of the different policy measures and for an EU-27 wide comparison.

Open fields were used for verbal descriptions such as the name of the measure or implementation problems and reference. If possible, standardised reply facilities were used for most questions. They represent the classification of policy attributes proposed by the project team. The interviewees can select between one or several possible answers (see Annex print version).

The attributes of the described agricultural policies are e.g.: English and local name of measure, regional relevance, year of implementation, implementation and monitoring institutions and mechanisms, main target and soil protection problem addressed by the


measure, agricultural practices and long term measures affected, affiliation of the measure to GAEC standards or the Rural Development Programmes, the percentage of compliance or the financial volume of the measure as well as the planned and the actual uptake of the measure, the existence of sanctions or eligibility restrictions, implementation problems and the reference to the measure.

5.3 Complementary questions

Interviewees were given the opportunity to critically comment the performance of national and CAP regulative environment regarding soil conservation in the part of the complementary questions. This may not be seen as an official statement of the agricultural ministries but can at least be considered as an EU-27 wide screening among administrative experts (mostly from national and regional ministries) regarding soil conservation policies.

Furthermore, participants were invited to insert the amount of time spent for filling in the online forms and their perception of the applied time span of 4 weeks for the online questionnaire. This information can be relevant for similar studies and also helps interpreting the quality of data obtained.

6. Technical Framework for Data Gathering

The methodology for data gathering contains an online-questionnaire which is connected to a server based SQL database. The operator interface is provided in form of questionnaires that appear in a standardised desktop design. The linkage between database and online form is provided by the software group Ruby on Rails. Online access to the database was regulated by limited access authorisation. Data security was assured by a backup strategy. A further database containing information on relevant experts and the process of data gathering itself was designed in Microsoft Access. Questionnaire and online presence as well as policy and expert databases had to meet a set of given needs. Data gathering itself included a detailed system of expert identification, establishing contacts and E-mail and phone reminders during the survey.

6.1 The Online-Survey

The utilized questionnaire met certain demands related to the online presence and data administration apart from the common criteria for questionnaires in socio-economic research. Site availability, access authorization, operator interface and the interface between questionnaire and database were addressed in an agreed way. Print versions of the questionnaire were not requested exclusively or distributed during the project.

6.1.1 ‘Online”- Properties of the Survey

The online questionnaire (see also: Annex 2) was available utilizing standard web browsers (e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox) for a period of six weeks, from April 2nd until May 30th 2008. Official closure of the survey was April 30th but most countries demanded time extensions. Therefore, the deadline was individually extended for these countries. Participants were equipped with passwords to be shared within their institution. The experts could contribute or complete data during the whole online period by employing their password. The individual questionnaires were stored at the ZALF server and could be accessed and completed until the deadline.

Access to the online schedules was restricted by the distribution of personal passwords. The experts had only access to their own form while the project team had full access to all forms.


The semi-structured questionnaire provided appropriate response facilities and an output performance with a high level of standardization. Most questions could be answered with small text elements (one to five words). Some questions required a more detailed answer (name of policy, reference) while in some cases, interviewees only had to choose yes or no. Whenever possible, several response options were provided by drop down menus.

Generally, selection facilities include the following:

• 1 or 2 (yes/no; either/or) • 1,2,3,4 (one of the following) • 1,2,3,4,+other (one of the following or other) • Open field for explaining a measure not found in the selection list

6.1.2 General Properties of the Online Questionnair e

The questionnaire employed had a comprehensive structure (see also: Annex 3). Questions were short, clear and easy to understand. There were no subliminal questions. Reply facilities were adequate to the desired output and met the language skills (English) and the professional background of the interview partners.

The number of questions was reduced to a minimum required for the desired output (review). The selection facilities were provided whenever possible in order to generate a comparable output and to save time of both the interviewees and the ZALF project team.

The ZALF project team encouraged the contributors to add as much information as possible based on the recommendation of the contracting authority. However, given the individual time restrictions of the interviewees and the still voluntary nature of the survey, the responses vary in volume and quality. Nevertheless, the results of the survey are seen as a sufficiently wide overview of the policy instruments.

6.1.3 Structural Design of the Questionnaire

The questionnaire (Annex 3) was split up in five sections. These were constituted by a title/front page (welcome page), three functional policy inventory forms and a complementary questions form.

After entering the operator interface with their web browsers, the interviewees were welcomed by a welcome field and thanked for their participation. The project title, some background information and a short instruction on how to insert data as well as address and contact data of the ZALF project team were presented.

Via menu bottoms (Annex 2) the interviewees could classify the policy/measure they wanted to submit and get to an overview page of their data already submitted within that category.

Policy Inventory Forms constituted the main part of the questionnaire and were composed by three sections. Each section corresponded to a type of policy or measure (‘Mandatory Measure’, ‘Voluntary Incentive Based Measure’, ‘Increasing Awareness Measure and Private Initiatives’). The forms can be infinitely reproduced by the interviewees utilizing the ‘add new measure’-buttons. By pressing the ‘UPDATE’ or ‘CREATE’- button, measures were saved to the database.

Upon finalizing the questionnaire, some complementary questions on interviewees’ perception of the performance of agricultural soil conservation via national and EU-policy instruments as well as their perception of the survey were shortly addressed. Since many


experts on policy and regulatory environment concerning soil conservation were consulted by the review, this opportunity was used to gather some additional information on the feasibility of online questionnaires as a research tool on the supranational (EU) level.

The questionnaire could be reached at:

www.soco-policy.eu

Password and Username were provided to JRC/IPTS in late March 2008 to critically review the online appearance and functionality of the survey.

6.2 Contributing Experts

The policy inventory gathered by an online survey was based on experts’ knowledge and their voluntary participation. The participants had to dedicate time and labour to get informed about the project, ask their superiors how to handle the task and how to involve others, gather the relevant information and jointly fill in the online forms without receiving any payment or reimbursement. Therefore, the concept of participating experts has to be discussed within the methodology. As the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission (DG AGRI) strongly supported the project and even provided a letter of importance, the concept of contribution to the review was seen as an honour or at least a regular task for the identified professionals.

6.2.1 The concept of experts in the SoCo PolRev pro ject

‘Experts’ in the SoCo Policy Review project are persons working in administration services dealing with national or regional regulative environment concerning agricultural soil protection (including the implementation EU policies) or scientists and consultants working in the same field.

As the review focused on the implementation of EU policies, most valuable experts were considered to be found in the national or regional agricultural ministries.

6.2.2 Identification and Public Relations

Relevant professionals were identified by varying methods. In a first step, experts related to the ZALF project team from networks like the European Society for Soil Conservation (ESSC) and the COST-Action 634 were invited to recommend administrative experts from their national or regional ministries of agriculture and/or to participate in the survey themselves. Emails explaining the project were sent out the relevant experts (Annex 5). After the questionnaire was online and participation was assured via phone or email, the questionnaire’s web address, a username and a password were distributed.

The feedback from this first expert round was not satisfying, since it took the network experts too long to recommend administrative persons. The identified, administrative experts were also hesitant to respond to the invitation when contacted only by email.

To guarantee that the corresponding entities in the agricultural ministries have been invited to the survey, a more direct campaign was launched. Ministries and research institutions were directly contacted via phone. Phone calls explaining the project aims and relevance were directly complemented with explanatory emails that already contained web address, username and password. The feedback to this second campaign was better. Experts had a rather fast impression on the whole project and their expected contribution and could manage the task within the ministry by passing the mail to the relevant entities.


An additional literature review provided the project team with an approximate perception of the relevant schedules of responsibilities for the development, implementation and monitoring of the regulatory environment concerning soil protection on the relevant level of the EU-27 states. Responsible entities and experts were identified.

Relevant media identified was e.g.:

1. Rubio, J.L., Imeson, A.C., Bielek, P., Fullen, M.A., Pascual, J.A., Andreu, V., and Recatalá, L.A.C. (2006). Directory of European Organisations and Persons Working on Soil Protection. Bratislava

2. Eggers, J. Mettepenningen, E. Beckmann,V. Kunz, A, Hagedorn, K. (2005). Analysing Institutional Arrangements of Agri-Environmental Schemes in Europe: Final Report http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.agrar.hu-berlin.de%2Fstruktur%2Finstitute%2Fwisola%2Ffg%2Fress%2Fpublikationen%2Fforschungsberichte%2Fitaes&ei=3qFKSPuhOYeA7gWZ-fnWAw&usg=AFQjCNGKl31Wfw406Uta-5gSMTgWgkItPg&sig2=Y2UHMLLs_3PnLCkP_hNIMg

3. Hartmann,E., Schekahn,A.; Luick, R., Thomas, F. (2006). Kurzfassung der Agrarumwelt-und Naturschutzprogramme. Bundesamt für Naturschutz, Bonn, Germany

4. European Environment Agency. (2006). Integration of environment into EU agriculture policy-the IRENA indicator based assessment report, Copenhagen, Denmark

5. Prokop,G. (2005) The state of EU soil policy and soil related research. In: Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology (2005) 4:81–86

6. http://soilerosion.net/cost634/; (Website of the COST634 Network) 7. http://www.essc.sk/; (European Society for Soil Conservation) 8. http://www.ecologic.de/modules.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&catid=28;

(Ecologic- Think Tank for applied environmental research, policy analysis and consultancy with offices in Berlin and Brussels)

9. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/soil/index.htm; (European Soil Strategy website) 10. JRC/EC Land Management and Natural Hazards Unit (2008): Links to soil related boodies:

http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/library/links/soil.cfm 11. European Comission (2008). Standing Committee on Agricultural Research Portal.

http://ec.europa.eu/research/agriculture/scar/index_en.cfm 12. European Commission > Agriculture and Rural Development > Beneficiaries of CAP payments

(2008): http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/funding/index_en.htm

The identification of experts started after the interim meeting and the finalization of the interim report in late February 2008. Until Wednesday April 9th, at least one contact person in all 27 member states had been equipped with a username and password for the online form. Until then, further experts, mainly administrative persons, have been contacted. Since most contact persons served as multipliers, more people were actually involved and several hundreds of working hours were spent. The participating institutions were invited to share the login within their institutions. Therefore, the individual contributors were protected and more easily convinced to participate. The permanent process of ‘expert gathering’ and maintaining relations to the experts was rather time consuming and constituted a major task of the project.

6.2.3 Expert Database (Access)

After experts declared their willingness to cooperate, their contact data was stored and administered in an expert database. Changes in contact data and the procedure of the reminder campaigns were documented. Some information upon the approach towards the expert and comments were added as well. An expert database containing contact data is delivered together with the present report to JRC/ITPS.

Not all participating experts or institutions are listed, because it may be assumed that ministries quite frequently involved further experts, but may not have always informed the ZALF team. As logins were shared within the institutions, all experts appearing in the


database were to a certain extent involved in the project, but may have been multipliers, coordinators or executives.

6.3 Data gathering 6.3.1 Contributions to the online survey

Once the corresponding experts for the review project were identified, data gathering followed a standardized scheme. Communication with the identified experts was intense. The research character of the project was communicated to the participants in order to avoid bureaucratic restrictions. A letter of importance of the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission underlining the projects’ importance was provided to most participating entities.

6.3.2 Time scheme of data gathering

The time span of the online accessibility of the survey was four weeks with individually agreed extension periods of up to four weeks. The survey went online on Wednesday April 2nd. Official closure was set on April 30th, but individual extensions went up until May 30th.

6.3.3 The reminder campaigns

To make sure that the survey was put on the agenda by the contributing experts, three reminder campaigns (Annex 6, Annex 7, Annex 8) consisting of standardized emails that were accompanied by direct phone calls were launched (17.04.; 24.04.; 09.05.). Originally, only two email reminders were planned, but as the reminders showed to have a far more convincing effect regarding incoming data when escorted by phone calls, this approach was chosen.

6.3.4 Corrections on incoming data

ZALF team critically reviewed the incoming data sets reminding the experts to complement their submissions, if necessary, while the survey was still open. Minor corrections such as linguistic levelling, deletion of duplicate answers and selecting the most convincing answers if duplicated were performed.

6.3.5 Literature review

An additional literature review was done for the final report, if a country was not covered by at least two data entries from national experts. Based on a brief literature review, measures were inserted for Czech Republic, Lithuania and Spain. Data inserted by ZALF was labelled as additional data.

6.4 Data Administration

Since the online survey was connected to the SQL database structure whenever experts or ZALF members inserted data, the information was stored at the ZALF server and saved via a backup strategy. Once the online survey was closed, the gathered data was organized within the database and a complete ‘master”-database for the result presentation was elaborated.


7. Process and Performance of the Survey

Apart from the data output on the inventory of regulative environment concerning soil conservation in the EU-27 in form of databases, overview tables (8.1) and ‘Country fiches’ (8.1.15), some considerations on the level of participation, participating institutions, number and quality of data entries shall be presented in the following.

7.1.1 Participation in the survey

National and regional agricultural ministries from most EU-27 countries participated in the survey. In some cases participation was explicitly rejected (Lithuania: National Ministry of Agriculture; Germany: Federal Ministry for Food Agriculture and Consumer, Federal State Ministry of Agriculture of Thuringia), in some cases no commitment on data contribution has been made and no data entries were received until the end of the survey (Czech Republic, Spain; some regional institutions of Austria, Germany and Italy). An overview on participating institutions is presented in Table 1 and described in detail in the expert database delivered together with this report. In many cases it was not clear if further experts had been consulted or if data had been contributed only by the ministry.

98 logins including username, password, web address, and manual have been distributed to soil conservation experts or institutions. All 27 Member States were covered. Data entries were done from 53 individual logins. These 53 logins basically represent the different participating institutions as logins where shared within these institutions. Following the intense communication with the participating experts, usually several experts from different departments (e.g. Rural Development Department, Agricultural Paying Agency, Environmental Protection Department etc.) were involved in filling in the online forms. Altogether presumably more than hundred people contributed to the survey.

Rarely, participation was explicitly confirmed by the ministries or experts. Data entries into the online form indirectly confirmed experts’ participation.

In all institutions, non-participation was based on a decision making process involving several administrative persons and departments, and was not a one person reaction. This can be clearly documented by contact emails and calls from different persons within these institutions or from the ‘Carbon Copies’ (Cc:), the rejections were directed to.


Table 1: Overview of invited and participating inst itutions Country Name

Region/level Institution Data delivered

Participation rejected

Austria national Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Umwelt und Wasserwirtschaft

x

Burgenland Land Burgenland

Lower Austria Land Niederösterreich x

Upper Austria Direktion für Landesplanung, wirtschaftliche und ländliche Entwicklung

x

Salzburg Amt der Salzburger Landesregierung x

Steiermark Land Steiermark

Tyrol Land Tirol x

Belgium Wallonia Ministere De La Region Wallonne x

Flanders Ministry of the Flemish Community x

Bulgaria national Ministry of Agriculture x

Cyprus national Ministry of Agriculture x

Czech Republic

national Ministy of Agriculture

University Czech Technical University in Prague

Denmark national Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries x

Estland national Ministry of Agriculture x

Finland national Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry x

France national Ministy of Agriculture x

Germany national Federal Ministry for Food Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV)

x

national German Society for conservation Agriculture x

Baden-Württemberg Ministerium für Ernährung und ländlichen Raum Baden Württemberg

x

Bavaria Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Landwirtschaft und Forsten

x

Brandenburg Ministerium für Ländliche Entwicklung x

Hesse Hessisches Ministerium für Umwelt, ländlichen Raum und Verbraucherschutz

x

Mecklenburg Western Pomerania

Ministerium für Landwirtschaft, Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

x

North Rhine Westfalia

Ministry of the Environment and Conservation, Agriculture and Consumer Protection of the State North Rhine-Westphalia

x

Lower Saxony Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft, Verbraucherschutz und Landesentwicklung

x

Landwirtschaftskammer Niedersachsen x

Rhineland- Palatinate Ministerium Für Wirtschaft, Verkehr, Landwirtschaft Und Weinbau

x

Saarland Saarländisches Ministerium für Umwelt x

Sachsen-Anhalt Ministerium für Landwirtschaft und Umwelt Sachsen-Anhalt

Saxonia Sächsisches Staatsministerium für Umwelt und Landwirtschaft

x

Schleswig-Holstein Ministerium für Landwirtschaft, Umwelt, und ländliche Räume des Landes Schleswig-Holstein

Thüringen Federal State Ministry of Agriculture x

Greece national Ministry of agriculture x

Hungary national Ministry of Agriculture x

Research Institute Research Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

x


Country Name

Region/level Institution Data delivered

Participation rejected

Italy national APAT - Servizio Geologico d'Italia x

national Ministero delle Politiche Agricole Alimentari e Forestali

x

Piemonte, Campania, Liguria, Lazio, Marche, Bolcano, Sardegna

Regions were involved by the Ministero delle Politiche Agricole Alimentari e Forestali

x

Ireland national Ministry of Agriculture x

Latvia national Ministry of Agriculture x

Lithuania national Ministry of Agriculture x

Research Institute Lithuanian Institute of agrarian Economics

Luxembourg national Ministry of Agriculture, x

Malta national Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment x

Netherlands national Ministry of Agriculture x

Poland national Joint venture of ministries of agriculture and environment and civil experts

x

Portugal national Ministry of Agriculture x

Romania national Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development x

Slovak Republic

national Soil Science and Conservation Research Institute

x

Slovenia national Ministry for Agriculture and scientific consortium x

Spain national Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Medio Rural y Marino

Sweden national Ministry of Agriculture x

United Kingdom

UK (England) DEFRA-Department of the Environment Food and rural affairs

x

Scotland Soil Policy Coordination Team,ERAD/ACE x

Wales Welsh Assembly Government x

Northern Ireland UK Environmental Policy Branch of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Northern Ireland

x

The overall response to the questionnaire and the willingness of experts to contribute to the elaboration of an EU-27 wide inventory of soil conservation policies without receiving a payment or compensation may be best illustrated by the amount of time spent by the experts on the task (Table 2). It has to be kept in mind that contribution to the questionnaire was on a voluntary basis and was not compensated.

34 datasets even included answers to the complementary questions. Every dataset belongs to an institution/expert. The amount of time spent for filling in the online forms varied considerably. Out of the 31 experts/institutions that chose a numeric category, 19 spent more than four hours while nine experts stated to have spent even more than 8 hours of their work time. As many data contributions resulted in form of institutional cooperation, it can be assumed that the total amount of time spent by the expert exceeded the inserted values. This may also be the reason why only about two thirds of the datasets included answers to the complementary questions.

Estimating an average working time of 4 hours per dataset (53 datasets) more than 200 expert work hours may have been invested to the task not including the time spent on networking.


Table 2: Time spent by the experts on data contribu tion (numbers per time category) Member State Code --- 1-2 2-4 4-6 6-8 >8 Number of Informants that

answered the complementary question

Austria* AT 2 2 1 1 6

Belgium* BE 1 1

Bulgaria BG 1 1

Cyprus CY 0

+Czech Republic CZ 0

Denmark DK 0

Estonia EE 0

Finland FI 1 1

France FR 0

Germany* DE 2 2 2 1 7

Greece GR 1 1

Hungary HU 2 2

Ireland IE 1 1

Italy* IT 1 3 1 5

Latvia LV 1 1

+Lithuania LT 0

Luxembourg LU 1 1

Malta MT 1 1

Netherlands NL 1 1

Poland PL 1 1

Portugal PT 1 1

Romania RO 1 1

Slovakia SK 1 1

Slovenia SI 0

+Spain ES 0

Sweden SE 1 1

United Kingdom* UK 1 1 1 3

Sum - 6 7 5 9 1 9 37

*Member States with regional responsibilities regarding soil conservation + Data added by ZALF

7.1.2 Regional particularities on data gathering

In several countries (Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovak Republic, Spain), it was particularly difficult to identify or motivate the relevant experts to participate in the online survey on soil conservation policies in the EU. These difficulties are shortly explained in the following.

Italy:

In Italy regional administrations are responsible for the implementation of most soil protection measures. Since there are 21 regions in Italy, it is a difficult task to cover all their soil conservation policies in the current EU-27 review. Several institutions cooperated with the ZALF team to establish contacts or organize the data contribution.

→ Mandatory Measures for Italy (GAEC) had been contributed by the Geological Service of Italy (APAT). Through the coordination of the Italian Ministry for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the level of responsiveness to the questionnaire could be considered quite satisfactory (eight regions answered). They offered a good framework of the Italian situation; North, Central, South and Islands were represented. Apart from difficulties to address the “right” persons, the actual time period represented a crucial moment for the implementation


of RDPs and therefore the officers in charge of agri-environmental measures were particularly busy.

Czech Republic:

The corresponding expert within the Ministry of Agriculture was identified very late and could not be reached by phone. Emails remained unanswered.

→ some measures were added by a literature review.

Germany:

As Germany opted against the soil directive, ministries generally were reluctant to further soil policy investigations. This may be the reason for negative answers of the Federal Ministry for Food Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV), and federal state ministries of agriculture of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt.

→ since contributions were received from 10 out of 13 federal states of Germany (excluding city states), soil conservation policies in Germany can be considered as well covered by the survey.

Hungary:

Involving the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture in the review project was a difficult and time consuming process. Data entries were received only in the last days before closure and were not detailed.

→ Data entries provide by the Ministry were complemented by contributions received from by civic experts.

Lithuania:

The Ministry of Agriculture refused participation on April 23rd. Civil experts from research institutions were invited, but no data entries were received.

→ Some measures were added by ZALF based on a literature review.

Slovenia:

Due to the EU Council Presidency of Slovenia 2008, the ministry stated to be very busy.

→ A consortium of researchers together with administrative people worked on the task and achieved considerable detailedness in their data entries.

Slovak Republic:

No feedback was given by the Slovak Ministry of Agriculture.

→A consortium of scientists covered the task in a detailed way.

Spain:

As Spain offers 15 rural development plans that are only available in Spanish, the regional measures were very difficult to cover in the current review. Identified experts did not respond.


Contacting the ministries was complicated. Only one indirect contact to the ministry of agriculture had been established but no response was given to the invitation.

→ Some measures were added by ZALF based on a literature review.

7.1.3 Data quality

Data inserted by the participants do not necessarily reflect the institutions’ (e.g. Ministry of Agriculture) overall opinion. Data may not be considered complete due to financial and time restrictions. Given the voluntary character of the survey it was not possible to request complete data entry of all policy relevant measures at different governance levels (national, state level). Consequently, the level of detail and the quality of inserted data varied. Austria with its federal structure reported 48 single policy measures in a very detailed way while the Netherlands only submitted 2 measures (GAEC and RDP).

Some information on the data quality may also be obtained from the complementary questions of the survey (Table 3). 32 statements on the availability of the relevant information for filling in the online forms were made. 21 experts/institutions stated to have had easy access while 11 stated that they did not. This may be interpreted as a quality indicator for the data entries. Almost two thirds stated to have easy access to the relevant data, while the other third had to invest more time and efforts to gather the relevant information.

Table 3: Availability of the relevant information ( number expert statements) Member State Code Yes No

Austria* AT 2 2

Belgium* BE 0 1

Bulgaria BG 1 0

Cyprus CY 0 0

+Czech Republic CZ 0 0

Denmark DK 0 0

Estonia EE 0 0

Finland FI 1 0

France FR 0 0

Germany* DE 4 1

Greece GR 0 1

Hungary HU 2 0

Ireland IE 0 1

Italy* IT 4 1

Latvia LV 0 1

+Lithuania LT 0 0

Luxembourg LU 1 0

Malta MT 1 0

Netherlands NL 1 0

Poland PL 0 1

Portugal PT 1 0

Romania RO 0 1

Slovakia SK 1 0

Slovenia SI 0 0

+Spain ES 0 0

Sweden SE 0 0

United Kingdom* UK 2 1

Sum - 21 11



A literature review would have also covered parts of the existing legislative framework regarding soil conservation, but apart from language problems the whole range of policy attributes provided in the review by the expert appraisals (e.g. percentage of compliance, main problem of implementation etc.) as well as the actuality of the measures would have been difficult to cover.

More data could have been gained involving also all environmental ministries, local administration and a considerable amount of universities and research institutions tot the task. But considering the given focus, universities would have had difficulties in describing the policy attributes asked for the survey. Data inserted by the participating experts is considered to be very up to date and representing the main policy efforts towards agricultural soil protection in the EU-27 Member States.

Participating professionals where not always able to describe single measures (e.g. planting of hedges, reduced tillage, restricted use of pesticides etc.) as requested. Instead, they often listed whole programmes containing a variety of measures in one dataset (e.g. Rural Development Programme, ÖPUL, MEKA etc.). By providing multiple select options for the attributes and letting the participants describe the measure/ programme in an open field, more specified answers could also be obtained. Listing up all sub-measures relevant to agricultural soil conservation in the EU-27 on the level of their design and implementation (national, regional or local) would have certainly resulted in datasets of several thousand measures. Incoming data had to be corrected and reviewed by ZALF. In the case that no data entries were made (Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Spain) or only text documents were sent (Hungary), additional data entries have been made by ZALF (Table 4).


19 measures were added to the online forms while 57 measures received major editing like translation, renaming, adding of references, and removal of non-functioning links or other major corrections. Minor linguistic levelling was not considered editing work. Concerning the policy attributes no editing was done.

Table 4: Measures added or edited Zalf (numbers) Member State Measures added Measures edited

Austria* 11

Belgium*

Bulgaria

Cyprus

+Czech Republic 6

Denmark 3

Estonia

Finland 8

France 16

Germany 12

Greece

Hungary 3

Ireland

Italy

Latvia

+Lithuania 2

Luxembourg

Malta

Netherlands

Poland

Portugal 6

Romania 1

Slovakia

Slovenia

+Spain 8

Sweden

United Kingdom

Sum 19 57


7.1.4 General feedback to the review project

The perception of the review project broadly varied between the administrative and scientific experts. While some experts openly presented what was done towards soil protection in their country or region, others seemed to perceive the survey as an additional and not agreed evaluation tool for the implementation of CAP instruments. The reminders revealed the necessity to insist on the task to obtain information from the experts.

Experts were more interested in presenting national and regional regulative environment and initiatives apart from CAP instruments which they seemed to identify as ‘proper’ measures.

Many participants declared their strong interest in the project outcome and asked for being informed where and when the project results may be available.


8. Results

In this chapter quantitative results are presented in the form of commented overview tables (chapter 8.1) and ‘country fiches’ (chapter 8.2). Chapter 8.1 is structured around the basic characteristics of (a) mandatory measures (MM), (b) voluntary incentive based measures (VIBM), and (c) increasing awareness measures and private initiatives (IAM+PI). In the following, some qualitative results are summarised that were derived from the complementary part of the survey and may well reflect some fundamental considerations towards the relation between CAP instruments and soil protection. These considerations should be seen as individual expert’s statements and not as official institutional communication but they may reflect actual trends.

Out of 53 participating experts/institutions the following general considerations were made:

From your opinion, does the legislation of your country or region address the aspects of soil conservation in a sufficient way? (one sentence)

Strong trend towards positive answers Number of answers: 30 Do you feel that the instruments of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in combination with national and regional efforts lead to an effective way of soil conservation in the agricultural landscape in your country or region?

Yes : 27 No: 5 Number of answers: 32

The following list of statements was gathered by the following question:

Where do you feel that improvements of the CAP instruments regarding soil conservation might be needed towards the goal of sustainable land use in the agricultural landscape?

- Adjustment of the Mandatory Measures to specific measures in threatened areas.

- Special soil protection is much needed in fields with vegetable-growing like vineyards or fruit-growing. The most problems with soil compaction, erosion, nutrition imbalance and missing biodiversity are among these areas

- Policy measures should consider more detailed guidelines based on environmental conditions, such as consideration of groundwater depth, soil texture classes, soil CaCO3 content, etc

- The most important and urgent improvement of CAP instruments is to move from the concept of MRE "Minimum Requirements regarding the Environment" based on actions to be applied in the field to a new concept of MRE based on thresholds of sustainability of different areas (erosion, O.C. biodiversity etc.).

- Before defining the "Good farming practices" or the "Good Agronomical and Environmental conditions", from which mandatory rules of cross compliance or voluntary measures under Regional Programmes have been derived, it is important to define whether these agronomical practices are effective or not with respect to the soil conservation issues. For instance, when defining an agri-environmental measure against soil erosion it is necessary to know in advance the tolerable soil erosion rate (MRE) for the specific area where the measure is planned to be applied.

- More measures concerning soil conservation practices are needed.

- More measures concerning land suitability to agriculture and conservation tillage would be an improvement.


- Improvement of education, improvement of agricultural advice, need of experimental fields for soil conservation

- Application of a higher bonus for agri-environmental measures in Axis 2 of the RDP where identifiable and accepted measures are specifically resorted to ensure soil conservation.

- In the CAP, soil conservation is only negatively addressed in terms of obligations, requirements and reductions in payments to farmers and farming practices, but we would like also to explore ways for positive incentives within the first pillar of the CAP for farming practices that already contribute to sustainable soil management on farm (and or regional) level.

- Conditionality and incentive measures under RDP programs are sufficiently flexible to consider national, regional or site specific measures, whether necessary, on the basis of subsidiarity

- One improvement would be the simplification of the GAECs or cross-compliance in the sense that would reduce the administrative effort, and farmers and administration costs.

- Present measures contribute to the improvement in soil conservation. Despite this, there are some reserves in the next improvement especially in water retention and carbon sequestration areas that are significant areas as from national as well as global view

- It is still unclear under the GAEC framework what is mandatory, and what is flexible. Member States need flexibility wherever possible in order to work efficiently with industry stakeholders.


8.1 EU-wide Overview tables

The policy inventory was following a clear methodological approach utilizing three policy categories:

Mandatory Measures (MM):



Voluntary Incentive Based Measures (VIBM):

- Measures as part of the Rural Development Plans (Directive No.1698/2005, Axis 1 (‘Improving the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry sector”), 2 (‘Improving the environment and the countryside”) and 4 (‘LEADER”))


Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives (IAM+PI):


Mostly due to their federal structure, several countries were represented by more than one institution. In these cases, national and regional policy measures were contributed by the experts. The regional validity of these data has to be critically reviewed. In those cases with federal structures, the number of reported policy measures was generally much higher than for other countries. This was the case for the following countries:

Austria*: Ministry of life (National level) and the regions of: Lower Austria, Upper Austria, Salzburg, and Tyrol

missing: Burgenland, Steiermark, Kärnten, Vorarlberg

Belgium*: Regions of Flanders and Wallonia

Germany*: Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg Western Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony

missing: Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Thuringia, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony-Anhalt; (City-states Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg were not invited)

Italy*: APAT (National Level) and the regions of: Piemonte, Campania, Liguria, Lazio, Marche, Bolzano, Sardinia.


missing: Valle D’Aosta, Lombardia, Provincia Autonoma Trento, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Emilia-Romagna, Toscana, Umbria, Abruzzo, Molise, Puglia, Calabria, Sizilia

United Kingdom*: Nations of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales

These countries will be marked with an asterisk (*) in the following overview tables. Spain being a country where soil conservation policies are also implemented on a regional level is not marked, because no regional level data was contributed.

Most overview tables include absolute numbers of measures or attributes. These numbers can reflect datasets (e.g. how many mandatory measures were inserted) or policy attributes (e.g. which agricultural practices where affected by the measure). In the first example each measure leads to a single entry (‘Boolean’ or ‘Select from list’ response facilities) while in the second multiple select options and thereby various answers per inserted measure were possible. The numbers shown in the overview tables do not allow detailed quantitative analysis but rather reflect tendencies and trends. This point has to be made very clear due to varying data quality, mentioned under chapter 7.1.3 (data quality).

A further numerical gap resulted from the different handling of data entries. When single measures (e.g. planting of hedges, reduced tillage measure, restricted use of pesticides etc.) were listed as single policies, more data entries were received as from grouped entries when programmes containing a variety of measures (e.g. RDPs) where entered as a single soil conservation policy. Listing up all sub-measures relevant to agricultural soil conservation in the EU-27 on the level of their design and implementation (National, Regional or local) would have certainly resulted in datasets of several thousand measures and could not be provided in that detail in this survey.


8.1.1 Soil Protection by Categories

More than 400 soil protection measures were added by the selected experts, while several measures were additionally added by ZALF (Table 5). Most measures were inserted in the category ‘Mandatory Measures’ (MM) followed by the category ‘Voluntary Incentive Based Measures’ (VIBM). Only a limited number of ‘Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives’ (IAM+PI) were contributed to the survey.

Table 5: Soil protection policies by categories (nu mber of measures per category) Member State Code Mandatory

Measures (MM) Voluntary Incentive Based Measures (VIBM)


Total Number of measures

Austria* AT 33 7 8 48

Belgium* BE 8 1 - 9

Bulgaria BG 6 5 - 11

Cyprus CY 1 1 1 3

+Czech Republic CZ 4 2 - 6

Denmark DK 1 9 1 11

Estonia EE 8 6 - 14

Finland FI 7 5 1 13

France FR 5 11 - 16

Germany* DE 10 25 8 43

Greece GR 8 3 - 11

Hungary HU 3 2 - 5

Ireland IE 2 1 - 3

Italy* IT 46 22 5 73

Latvia LV 3 1 - 4

+Lithuania LT 2 2 - 4

Luxembourg LU 2 6 1 9

Malta MT 5 13 - 18

Netherlands NL 1 1 - 2

Poland PL 1 2 1 4

Portugal PT 6 2 - 8

Romania RO 1 7 - 8

Slovakia SK 11 11 - 22

Slovenia SI 9 5 - 14

+Spain ES 6 1 2 9

Sweden SE 2 5 1 8


Sum - 228 166 35 429


Data allocation with regard to these categories reflected the communicated focus on MM and VIBM of the survey. Most data entries were received from Italy (73) and the least from the Netherlands (2). As the focus also lay on EU policies, national law was not very frequently named and data entries for mandatory measures are not satisfactory (1) in many countries (Cyprus, Denmark, Poland, Romania).


8.1.2 Measure or result orientation of soil protect ion policies in the EU

A crucial point for monitoring and farmers perception on regulative policies regarding soil conservation is the question if the policy is designed to meet certain measurable values such as certain levels of toxins, nitrates etc or if it requires certain activities as e.g. reduced tillage, cuts per year, establishment of linear elements etc. For the categories ‘Mandatory Measures’ (MM) and ‘Voluntary Incentive Based Measures’ (VIBM) experts were invited to classify if a policy was result-oriented or measure-oriented (Table 6). 375 policies were classified in total, 16 MMs and 6 VIBMS were not classified by the experts.

A clear dominance of ‘measure’ orientation of agricultural policies can be recognized. For mandatory as well as incentive based measures in the EU 27. These tend to involve the farmer to engage actively in soil conservation. It may be interpreted that measures directed at meeting certain standards may be burdened by complicated monitoring procedures resulting in a certain reservation in regional administration to implement result oriented measures.

Table 6: Result or Measure Orientation of Policies (numbers per category) Member State

Code Result oriented Sum Measure oriented Sum Total Number of measures

MM VIBM MM VIBM

Austria* AT 11 1 12 19 6 25 37

Belgium* BE 3 - 3 4 1 5 8

Bulgaria BG - 2 2 6 3 9 11

Cyprus CY - - - 1 1 2 2

+Czech Republic

CZ - - - 4 - 4 4

Denmark DK 1 1 2 - 8 8 10

Estonia EE 4 4 8 4 2 6 14

Finland FI - - - 7 5 12 12

France FR 3 - 3 2 11 13 16

Germany* DE - - - 10 25 35 35

Greece GR 4 2 6 4 1 5 11

Hungary HU - - 0 1 1 2 2

Ireland IE 1 1 2 1 - 1 3

Italy* IT 6 4 10 38 18 56 66

Latvia LV 1 - 1 2 1 3 4

+Lithuania LT - - - 2 1 3 3

Luxembourg LU 1 - 1 1 6 7 8

Malta MT 5 - 5 2 13 15 20

Netherlands NL - - - 1 1 2 2

Poland PL 1 - 1 - 2 2 3

Portugal PT - - - 6 2 8 8

Romania RO - 1 1 1 6 7 8

Slovakia SK - - - 11 11 22 22

Slovenia SI - 4 4 9 1 10 14

+Spain ES - - - - - - 0

Sweden SE - 1 1 3 4 7 8

United Kingdom*

UK 10 - 10 25 9 34 44

Sum - 51 21 72 164 139 303 375



8.1.3 Main target of soil conservation policies

Being asked for the main target of the agricultural policies including important soil conservation aspects, the participating experts were offered the following categories: Soil, Water, Air, Biodiversity and Other (not specified).

150 out of 221 inserted Mandatory Measures (Table 7) were directly addressing soil protection as the main target. Voluntary Incentive Based Measures (VIBM) were predominantly not directed towards soil protection but included soil protection aspects (Table 8). Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives (IAM+PI) were only added by ten Member States and mainly directed towards soil and water protection (Table 9).

MMs and VIBM targeting water and biodiversity protection but also including soil conservation measures were listed with similar frequency. Measures targeting other objectives but including policies concerning agricultural soil conservation were added for all categories. No soil conservation policy was listed that was mainly directed towards air protection but included soil conservation measures as a secondary task.

Table 7: Main target of MM (numbers per category) Member State Code Soil Water Air Biodiversity Other (not

specified) Total Number of measures

Austria* AT 23 1 - 1 7 32

Belgium* BE 6 1 - - 1 8

Bulgaria BG 6 - - - - 6

Cyprus CY 1 - - - - 1

+Czech Republic

CZ 3 - - - 1 4

Denmark DK - 1 - - - 1

Estonia EE 4 1 - - 3 8

Finland FI 5 1 - - 1 7

France FR 4 - - - 1 5

Germany* DE 9 - - 1 - 10

Greece GR 6 1 - - 1 8

Hungary HU 2 - - - 1 3

Ireland IE - 1 - 1 - 2

Italy* IT 24 2 - 13 5 44

Latvia LV 3 - - - - 3

+Lithuania LT 2 - - - - 2

Luxembourg LU 2 - - - - 2

Malta MT 6 1 - - - 7

Netherlands NL 1 - - - - 1

Poland PL 1 - - - - 1

Portugal PT 6 - - - - 6

Romania RO 1 - - - - 1

Slovakia SK 8 - - 3 - 11

Slovenia SI 5 - - 2 2 9

+Spain ES 1 - - - - 1

Sweden SE - 3 - - - 3

United Kingdom*

UK 21 8 -

4 2 35

Sum - 150 21 0 25 25 221



The reason that more VIBMs contributed by the professionals were addressing other main targets than soil protection (Table 8) may be explained by the fact that EU policies including Rural Development Programmes (e.g. Agri-environmental schemes) were a major focus of the survey. Quite frequently, the experts listed single measures of the RDP that included soil conservation aspects as secondary tasks (e.g. maintaining old terraces, afforestation etc.).

Table 8: Main target of VIBM (numbers per category) Member State Code Soil

Conservation Water Air Biodiversity Other (not

specified) Number of Measures

Austria* AT 4 2 - - 1 7

Belgium* BE 1 - - - - 1

Bulgaria BG 2 - - 1 1 4

Cyprus CY 1 - - - - 1

+Czech Republic

CZ - - - - - -

Denmark DK 1 3 - 2 3 9

Estonia EE - - - 2 4 6

Finland FI - 2 - 2 1 5

France FR 1 5 - 1 4 11

Germany* DE 8 7 - 4 4 23

Greece GR 2 - - - 1 3

Hungary HU - - - - 1 1

Ireland IE - - - 1 - 1

Italy* IT 12 1 - 2 7 22

Latvia LV - - - 1 - 1

+Lithuania LT - 1 - - 1 2

Luxembourg LU 3 2 - - 1 6

Malta MT - - - 5 8 13

Netherlands NL 1 - - - - 1

Poland PL 1 - - - - 1

Portugal PT 1 - - - - 1

Romania RO 2 - - - 4 6

Slovakia SK 2 - - 2 6 10

Slovenia SI - 1 - - 4 5

+Spain ES - - - - 1 1

Sweden SE 1 2 - 2 - 5

United Kingdom*

UK - 1 - 2 7 10

Sum - 43 27 0 27 59 156



Frequently IAM+PI were listed that were mainly targeting water protection but also had a strong impact on soil conservation. However, initiatives mainly addressing soil protection problems were listed as well.

Table 9: Main target of IAM+PI (numbers per categor y) Member State Code Soil Water Air Biodiversity Other (not

specified) Number of Measures

Austria* AT 5 1 - - - 6

Belgium* BE - - - - - -

Bulgaria BG - - - - - -

Cyprus CY - 1 - - - 1

+Czech Republic

CZ - - - - - -

Denmark DK 1 - - - - 1

Estonia EE - - - - - -

Finland FI - 1 - - - 1

France FR - - - - - -

Germany* DE 7 - - - 1 8

Greece GR - - - - - -

Hungary HU - - - - - -

Ireland IE - - - - - -

Italy* IT 2 3 - - - 5

Latvia LV - - - - - -

+Lithuania LT - - - - - -

Luxembourg LU - 1 - - - 1

Malta MT - - - - - -

Netherlands NL - - - - - -

Poland PL - - - 1 - 1

Portugal PT - - - - - -

Romania RO - - - - - -

Slovakia SK - - - - - -

Slovenia SI - - - - - -

+Spain ES - - - - - -

Sweden SE - 1 - - - 1

United Kingdom*

UK 4 1 - - 1 6

Sum - 19 9 0 1 2 31



8.1.4 Soil protection problems addressed by the pol icies

Al soil protection problems addressed by the survey were met as policy attributes by all categories (MM, VIBM, IAM+PI): Soil erosion (water), Soil erosion (wind), Decline in organic matter, Soil contamination (local), Soil contamination (diffuse), Soil compaction, Decline in soil biodiversity, Salinization, Floods and landslides, Acidification, Offsite damages related to soil erosion.

Via multiple selection options experts could assign more than one soil protection problem to every single measure. Soil erosion by water was the soil protection problem most frequently addressed by MM (Table 10), VIBM (Table 11) and IAM+PI (Table 12) followed by Decline in organic matter. Acidification and salinization were rarely addressed by the mentioned policies.

Table 10: Soil Protection Problems addressed by MM (numbers per category) Member State Code ---

Soil erosion (w

ater)

Soil erosion (w

ind)

Decline in organic

matter

Soil contam

ination (local)

Soil contam

ination (diffuse)

Soil com

paction

Decline in soil

biodiversity

Salinization

Floods and

landslides

Acidification

Offsite dam

ages related to soil erosion

Austria* AT 4 13 12 10 16 9 9 10 1 1 2 -

Belgium* BE - 4 - 3 1 - 2 - - 1 1 1

Bulgaria BG - 3 3 2 - - 1 - - - - 1

Cyprus CY - 1 - 1 - - 1 - - - - -

+Czech Republic CZ - 3 2 2 - - 1 - - - 2

Denmark DK - - - - - - - - - - - -

Estonia EE - 1 - 2 5 5 - 2 - 1 - 1

Finland FI - 4 - 3 3 - 2 3 - - - -

France FR - 2 - 3 1 2 2 2 - - - -

Germany* DE 1 5 5 2 - - 2 1 - - - -

Greece GR - 6 - 6 - 1 1 2 - - - 1

Hungary HU 1 1 1 1 - - 1 - - - - -

Ireland IE - 2 1 - - - - - - - - 1

Italy* IT 2 27 1 18 2 1 7 12 - 10 - 1

Latvia LV - - - 2 - - - - - - - -

+Lithuania LT 1 - - - - - - - - - - -

Luxembourg LU - 1 - 1 - - - - - - - -

Malta MT - 2 - 3 - - 2 - - - - -

Netherlands NL - 1 - 1 - 1 - - - 1 - 1

Poland PL - 1 1 1 1 1 - - - - - 1

Portugal PT - 6 - 1 - - 2 - - - - -

Romania RO - 1 - 1 - - - 1 - 1 - 1

Slovakia SK 1 4 - 3 - - 2 3 - 1 - -

Slovenia SI 1 8 7 5 1 1 4 3 1 2 - 3

+Spain ES - 1 1 1 3 3 1 1 - 1 - 1

Sweden SE - 3 - 2 - - - 1 - - - 3

United Kingdom* UK 1 15 8 11 7 10 5 4 - 7 2 6

Sum 12 115 42 85 40 34 44 46 2 26 5 24



Even considering the fact that the numeric frequencies mentioned in the tables may not be overrated (see also chapters 7.1.3 and 8.1) activities to avoid soil erosion and compaction via mandatory measures and providing incentives for the maintenance of soil biodiversity and organic matter could be interpreted as currently preferred strategies for policy makers.

Table 11: Soil Protection Problems addressed by VIB M (numbers per category) Member State

Code ---

Soil erosion (w

ater)

Soil erosion (w

ind)

Decline in organic

matter

Soil contam

ination (local)

Soil contam

ination (diffuse)

Soil com

paction

Decline in soil

biodiversity

Salinization

Floods and

landslides

Acidification

Offsite dam


Austria* AT - 5 3 5 2 3 3 3 - - - 1

Belgium* BE - 1 - - - - - - - - - 1

Bulgaria BG - 3 3 - 1 1 - 1 1 1 1 1

Cyprus CY - - - - 1 1 - - - - - -

+Czech Republic

CZ - - - - - - - - - - - -

Denmark DK - - 1 3 7 8 3 2 - - - -

Estonia EE 4 - - 1 1 1 - - - - - -

Finland FI - 5 1 5 3 - 4 5 - - - 3

France FR - 8 6 7 - 4 5 7 - - - -

Germany* DE - 20 8 8 3 2 4 4 - 1 - 4

Greece GR - 2 - 2 1 1 - 2 - - - -

Hungary HU - 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Ireland IE - - - - - - 1 1 - - - -

Italy* IT - 15 2 12 3 4 6 16 1 11 - 6

Latvia LV - 1 1 1 - - - 1 - - - -

+Lithuania LT - 1 1 1 1 1 - 1 - - - 1

Luxembourg LU 1 5 - 1 - - 3 - - 1 - 5

Malta MT 9 3 3 - - - - 2 - - - -

Netherlands NL - - - 1 1 1 1 1 - - - -

Poland PL 1 - - 1 1 1 - 1 - - - -

Portugal PT - 1 - 2 1 1 1 1 - 1 1 -

Romania RO 1 5 4 4 3 2 3 3 3 4 3 3

Slovakia SK - 3 1 - 1 1 1 4 - 1 - -

Slovenia SI 4 1 - 1 1 1 - - - - - -

+Spain ES - 1 1 1 1 1 - 1 - - - -

Sweden SE - 1 - 2 2 - - 3 - - - 3

United Kingdom*

UK - 7 5 7 1 3 3 5 - 3 - -

Sum 20 89 41 66 36 38 39 65 6 24 6 29



Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives (IAM+PI) were also mostly directed towards the reduction of erosion, decline in organic matter and compaction.

Table 12: Soil Protection Problems addressed by IAM +PI (numbers per category) Member State

Code ---

Soil erosion (w

ater)

Soil erosion (w

ind)

Decline in organic

matter

Soil contam

ination (local)

Soil contam

ination (diffuse)

Soil com

paction

Decline in soil

biodiversity

Salinization

Floods and

landslides

Acidification

Offsite dam


Austria* AT - 7 2 6 6 5 7 6 - 2 3 2

Belgium* BE - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bulgaria BG - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cyprus CY - - - - 1 1 - - - - - -

+Czech Republic

CZ - - - - - - - - - - - -

Denmark DK - - 1 1 - - - - - - - -

Estonia EE - - - - - - - - - - - -

Finland FI - 1 - 1 - - 1 - - - - -

France FR - - - - - - - - - - - -

Germany* DE - 5 4 4 2 3 4 3 - 1 - 2

Greece GR - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hungary HU - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ireland IE - - - - - - - - - - - -

Italy* IT - 3 - 3 1 1 3 3 1 1 1 1

Latvia LV - - - - - - - - - - - -

+Lithuania LT - - - - - - - - - - - -

Luxembourg LU - 1 - 1 - - - - - - - -

Malta MT - - - - - - - - - - - -

Netherlands NL - - - - - - - - - - - -

Poland PL - 1 1 1 1 1 - 1 1 - 1 -

Portugal PT - - - - - - - - - - - -

Romania RO - - - - - - - - - - - -

Slovakia SK - - - - - - - - - - - -

Slovenia SI - - - - - - - - - - - -

+Spain ES - 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 - - - -

Sweden SE - - - - - - - - - - - 1

United Kingdom*

UK - 5 4 4 3 4 4 3 - 1 - -

Sum 0 24 13 22 15 16 20 17 2 5 5 6



8.1.5 Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC)

The Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) specified in the Directive No.1782/2003, Annex IV were frequently implemented via mandatory and voluntary measures throughout all 27 Member States (Table 13). Very frequently mandatory measures were implemented via Cross Compliance (in relation to SPS or SAPS in the new member states). Regarding their direct linkage to the GAEC standards, mandatory measures outnumbered voluntary actions, but a similar amount of measures not referring to the GAEC standards was listed.

Table 13: GAECs implementation via soil policies (n umber of measures per category) Member State Code Mandatory Measures Voluntary Inc entive Based Measures

yes no yes no

Austria* AT 13 19 3 4

Belgium* BE 7 1 1 -

Bulgaria BG 6 - 3 2

Cyprus CY 1 - - 1

+Czech Republic CZ 4 - 1 -

Denmark DK - 1 8 1

Estonia EE 2 6 5 1

Finland FI 4 3 5 -

France FR 4 1 10 1

Germany* DE 10 - 19 6

Greece GR 6 1 2 1

Hungary HU 1 - 1 -

Ireland IE 2 - 1 -

Italy* IT 38 5 15 7

Latvia LV 3 - 1 -

+Lithuania LT 1 - 1 1

Luxembourg LU 2 - - 6

Malta MT 7 - 8 -

Netherlands NL 1 - - 1

Poland PL - 1 - 2

Portugal PT 6 - 2 -

Romania RO 1 - 5 2

Slovakia SK 11 - 8 -

Slovenia SI 9 - 1 4

+Spain ES 2 - - -

Sweden SE 3 - 5 -


Sum 165 47 108 47



8.1.6 Farming practices affected by soil conservati on policies

Concerning the question how GAEC standards or soil protection problems are met by farmers’ actions, a distinction can be made between short term (e.g. cropping, tillage, fertilization) and long term agricultural practices (e.g. irrigation systems, technical constructions). These practices are affected by policies with a soil protection background.

Short term measures or farming practices that were addressed in the policy inventory forms are: Land consolidation, Set-aside, Rearrangement of field size, Establishment of linear elements, Cultivation methods, Tillage, Fertilization, Drilling, Crop rotation, Pesticide use, Irrigation, Drainage, Livestock management and “Other”. If experts opted for “Other” they were invited to explain this measure in an additional text field. Often, “mulching” was mentioned in these text fields by the experts. The response options for short and long term measures to be conducted by the farmers offered multiple select options. Participants were enabled to assign various attributes to the measures they were describing.

All short term measures offered as policy attributes were addressed by all policy categories throughout the EU-27. Cultivation methods followed by tillage and fertilization were most frequently addressed, while the rearrangement of field size was less frequently considered. Limitations regarding fertilizer and pesticide use were frequently met by restrictions and incentives. The encouragement of wider crop rotations may reflect the Member States’ efforts against monocultures.

The long term measures addressed in the survey are: Crop rotation, Strip cropping, Use of organic soil improvers/exogenous organic matter, Control of irrigation and drainage, Change of field patterns and sizes, Technical constructions (ditches, terraces, retention ponds), Livestock related measures and “Other”.

All long term measures offered were addressed by all policy categories throughout the EU-27. Most frequently crop rotations and other (individually described) long term measures were affected by the listed policies. The use of organic soil improvers, livestock related measures and technical constructions were also numerously addressed.


Within the category ‘Mandatory Measures’, agricultural short term practices were addressed 504 times by the policies (Table 14). Most frequently, cultivation methods and tillage practices were affected. Crop rotation, fertilization, land consolidation, livestock management and other measures (open field) were affected by soil conservation policies in most countries. Irrigation was a major topic in the southern countries like Italy, Slovenia and Greece (no data from Spain), but only marginally addressed by others. The establishment of linear elements and drilling were rarely addressed.

Table 14: Short term measures affected by Mandatory Measures (numbers per category) Member State

Code -

Land consolidation

Set-aside

Rearrangem

ent of field size

Establishm

ent of linear elem

ents

Cultivation m

ethods

Tillage

Fertilization

Drilling

Crop rotation

Pesticide use

Irrigation

Drainage

Livestock m

anagement

Other

Austria* AT - 1 3 2 1 6 5 8 2 4 6 1 1 4 3

Belgium* BE - 1 - 1 - 6 1 4 - 1 - - - - -

Bulgaria BG - 1 - 1 1 2 2 - 1 2 - - - - -

Cyprus CY - 1 - - - 1 1 - - 1 - - - 1 -

+Czech Republic

CZ - 1 - - 1 1 - - - 2 - - - - 1

Denmark DK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Estonia EE - - - - - 2 1 2 - 2 3 1 1 1 3

Finland FI - 3 4 - - 4 3 3 2 3 3 - - 4 -

France FR - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - - 1

Germany* DE - - 1 - - 5 5 1 1 5 - - - - 2

Greece GR - - 2 1 - 5 3 4 - 2 1 2 - 2 -

Hungary HU - - - - - 1 - 1 - 1 - - - 1 1

Ireland IE - - - - - 1 1 1 1 - - - - 2 -

Italy* IT - 13 5 7 3 13 15 5 - 8 2 3 11 7 8

Latvia LV - - - - - - - 1 - - - - 1 - 1

+Lithuania LT - 1 - - - - - - - - - - - - 1

Luxembourg LU - - - - - 2 1 - - 1 - - - - -

Malta MT - - - - - 5 - - - - - - - - 1

Netherlands NL - 1 - - 1 1 1 1 - 1 - - - - -

Poland PL - 1 - 1 - - - - - - - - - - 1

Portugal PT - 5 - - - 5 4 - - 1 - - 2 - -

Romania RO - - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - - 1 - -

Slovakia SK - 1 - 2 3 6 - 1 1 2 - - - 3 3

Slovenia SI - 3 5 2 3 8 6 4 5 3 3 3 3 4 3

+Spain ES - - - - - 1 1 2 1 - 1 1 - - -

Sweden SE - - 3 - - 3 3 3 - - 3 - - - -

United Kingdom*

UK - - 1 1 3 14 12 9 3 5 3 1 5 9 9

Sum 504 0 34 24 19 17 92 66 51 17 45 26 12 25 38 38



Incentives via short term measures were provided for adopted cultivation methods and fertilization in the majority of cases, (reduced) tillage and integrated pesticide use were numerously affected as well (Table 15). Less often, soil conservation was linked to measures affecting land consolidation, set-aside, rearrangement of field size and drainage. Few policies addressing these practices were added as soil conservation policies to the survey.

Table 15: Short term measures affected by VIBM (num bers per category) Member State

Code -

Land consolidation

Set-aside

Rearrangem

ent of field size

Establishm

ent of linear elem

ents

Cultivation m

ethods

Tillage

Fertilization

Drilling

Crop rotation

Pesticide use

Irrigation

Drainage

Livestock m

anagement

Other

Austria* AT - - - - - 3 4 3 3 1 3 1 1 3 2

Belgium* BE - - - - - 1 1 - - - - - - - -

Bulgaria BG - 1 - 1 2 3 4 3 2 3 2 3 2 2 -

Cyprus CY - - - - - - 1 - - 1 1 - - - -

+Czech Republic

CZ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Denmark DK - - 5 3 - 7 2 5 - 4 5 5 1 3 -

Estonia EE - - - - - 3 5 3 - 2 3 - - 3 4

Finland FI - - 4 - - 4 4 4 2 4 4 2 2 - 1

France FR - - - - 2 7 2 6 - 7 5 2 - - 3

Germany* DE - - - - 2 10 11 10 4 7 9 1 - 2 1

Greece GR - - 1 - - 1 - 1 - - - 1 1 2 -

Hungary HU - - - - - 1 1 1 - 1 1 1 - 1 1

Ireland IE - - - - - - 1 1 1 - - - - 1 -

Italy* IT - 6 3 3 5 11 7 8 - 4 6 2 4 6 4

Latvia LV - 1 - - - - - 1 - - 1 - - - -

+Lithuania LT - 1 1 - - 1 1 - - 1 1 - - 1 1

Luxembourg LU - 1 - 2 1 4 4 1 3 2 1 - 1 - 1

Malta MT - - - - - - - - - 1 3 - - - 7

Netherlands NL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Poland PL - - - - - 1 - 1 - 1 1 - - - -

Portugal PT - - - - 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 - 1 1 -

Romania RO - 1 - 1 - 2 1 - - - - 1 - - 1

Slovakia SK - - - 2 2 3 1 3 - 2 3 - - 3 1

Slovenia SI - 1 - - - 1 - 1 - 1 1 - - 1 2

+Spain ES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sweden SE - - - - - 3 3 3 - - 3 - - - -

United Kingdom*

UK - - - 1 7 9 6 6 4 3 4 1 1 6 1

Sum 483 0 12 14 13 22 76 61 62 20 46 58 20 14 35 30



The intention to take influence on farmers’ perception towards soil conservation via short term measures was also addressed by ‘Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives’ (Table 16). Again, cultivation measures, fertilization, crop rotation and tillage were addressed in the majority of the cases. Land consolidation, set aside, rearrangement of field size, the establishment of linear elements and irrigation were addressed to a lower extent.

Table 16: Short term measures affected by IAM+PI (n umbers per category) Member State

Code -

Land consolidation

Set-aside

Rearrangem

ent of field size

Establishm

ent of linear elem

ents

Cultivation m

ethods

Tillage

Fertilization

Drilling

Crop rotation

Pesticide use

Irrigation

Drainage

Livestock m

anagement

Other

Austria* AT - 1 - 1 1 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4

Belgium* BE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Bulgaria BG - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cyprus CY - - - - - - - 1 - - - - - - -

+Czech Republic

CZ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Denmark DK - - 1 1 - 1 - - - 1 - - - - -

Estonia EE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Finland FI - - - - - 1 1 1 - 1 1 - 1 1 -

France FR - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Germany* DE - 1 - 2 1 6 3 5 3 4 1 - 1 1 1

Greece GR - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hungary HU - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ireland IE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Italy* IT - 1 - - - 4 1 3 - 2 1 3 1 1 1

Latvia LV - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

+Lithuania LT - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Luxembourg LU - - - - - 1 1 1 1 1 1 - - - -

Malta MT - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Netherlands NL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Poland PL - - 1 1 1 1 - 1 - 1 1 - - 1 1

Portugal PT - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Romania RO - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Slovakia SK - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Slovenia SI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

+Spain ES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sweden SE - - - - - 1 - 1 - 1 - - - - -

United Kingdom*

UK - - 1 - 3 3 3 5 2 3 2 1 2 3 1

Sum 0 3 3 5 6 22 13 22 10 18 11 7 9 11 8



Regulations on long term crop rotation schemes (Table 17) were reported from most participating experts as policy attributes of a mandatory regulative environment. As stated before the intention of avoiding long term monocultures by normative approaches may be interpreted from this. Very often, long term practices that had not been specified before were affected by the regulations listed (please see also: description of measures: chapter 8.1.15, country fiches and policy inventory database).

Table 17: Long term practices affected by MM (numbe rs per category) Member State Code ---

Crop rotation

Strip cropping

Use of organic soil

improvers/exogen

ous organic matter

Control of

irrigation and drainage

Change of field

patterns and sizes

Technical

constructions (ditches, terraces, retention ponds)

Livestock related m

easures

other

Austria* AT 17 3 1 4 1 2 2 2 2

Belgium* BE 2 4 1 2 - 2 1 - 1

Bulgaria BG - 3 2 2 1 1 1 - -

Cyprus CY - 1 - 1 - - 1 1 -

+Czech Republic CZ - 1 - - - - 1 - 2

Denmark DK - - - - - - - - -

Estonia EE - 2 - - 1 - 2 1 6

Finland FI - 4 1 4 - - - 4 1

France FR - 1 - 2 1 - - - 2

Germany* DE 1 6 - 3 - 1 2 - 2

Greece GR - 2 - 3 2 - 2 1 -

Hungary HU 1 1 1 - - - 1 1 1

Ireland IE - - - 1 - - - 2 -

Italy* IT - 9 - 7 13 3 11 6 13

Latvia LV - - - - 1 - - - 1

+Lithuania LT - 1 - - - - - - 1

Luxembourg LU - 2 1 1 - - 1 - 1

Malta MT - 1 - 1 - - 1 - 2

Netherlands NL - - - - 1 - 1 - -

Poland PL - - - - - - - - -

Portugal PT - 1 - - 5 - 3 - -

Romania RO - - - - 1 1 1 - -

Slovakia SK - 3 - 1 - 2 2 3 4

Slovenia SI - 4 2 2 2 2 3 3 5

+Spain ES - 1 1 1 1 - 1 - -

Sweden SE 2 - - - - - - - -

United Kingdom* UK 1 9 2 9 4 1 3 11 6

Sum 313 24 59 12 44 34 15 40 35 50



Many of the voluntary measures added by the experts also focused on long term crop rotations (Table 18). Livestock related measures and the use of organic soil improvers were frequently addressed. Fewer incentive measures regarding irrigation control and changes of field patterns were listed. As damages from inadequate drainage and irrigation systems tend to have strong off-site effects, a tendency to regulate irrigation and drainage management via binding obligations may be interpreted from this.

Table 18: Long term practices affected by VIBM (num bers per category) Member State Code ---

Crop rotation

Strip cropping

Use of organic soil

improvers/exogen

ous organic matter

Control of


Change of field

patterns and sizes

Technical


Livestock related m

easures

other

Austria* AT - 2 - 1 1 1 - 2 3

Belgium* BE - - - - - - 1 - -

Bulgaria BG - 3 3 - 2 - 2 1 1

Cyprus CY - 1 - 1 - - - - -

+Czech Republic CZ - 6 1 2 3 4 3 4 -

Denmark DK - 5 - 3 - - - 3 5

Estonia EE - 4 2 3 2 - - - 1

Finland FI - 8 - 5 - - - 1 3

France FR 4 8 2 2 - 3 - 2 4

Germany* DE - 1 - 1 1 - - 1 -

Greece GR - 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Hungary HU - - - 1 - - 1 1 -

Ireland IE 1 4 4 7 3 5 5 5 5

Italy* IT - 1 - - - - - - -

Latvia LV - 1 - - - - - - 1

+Lithuania LT - 2 1 1 - 1 - - 3

Luxembourg LU - 1 - 1 - - - - 11

Malta MT 1 - - - - - - - -

Netherlands NL 1 1 - 1 - - - - -

Poland PL - - - - - - - - -

Portugal PT 1 1 - 1 - - 1 1 -

Romania RO 4 2 - - - - - 1 1

Slovakia SK 1 2 1 - - 2 1 3 -

Slovenia SI 2 1 - - - - 1 1 2

+Spain ES 1 - - - - - - - -

Sweden SE 3 - - - - - - - -

United Kingdom* UK - 5 1 3 1 1 3 6 1

Sum 255 19 60 16 34 14 18 19 33 42



Many of the IAM+PI measures listed by the experts had an impact on long term agricultural practices (Table 19). Again, crop rotation was most frequently addressed.

Table 19: Long term practices affected by IAM+PI (n umbers per category) Member State Code ---

Crop rotation

Strip cropping

Use of organic soil

improvers/exogen

ous organic matter

Control of


Change of field

patterns and sizes

Technical


Livestock related m

easures

other

Austria* AT 2 4 2 4 4 1 1 4 4

Belgium* BE - - - - - - - - -

Bulgaria BG - - - - - - - - -

Cyprus CY - - - 1 - - - - -

+Czech Republic CZ - - - - - - - - -

Denmark DK - 1 - - - - - - -

Estonia EE - - - - - - - - -

Finland FI - 1 - - - - 1 - -

France FR - - - - - - - - -

Germany* DE - 5 1 3 1 2 - - 1

Greece GR - - - - - - - - -

Hungary HU - - - - - - - - -

Ireland IE - - - - - - - - -

Italy* IT - 2 1 2 2 - 1 1 1

Latvia LV - - - - - - - - -

+Lithuania LT - - - - - - - - -

Luxembourg LU - 1 - 1 - - - - -

Malta MT - - - - - - - - -

Netherlands NL - - - - - - - - -

Poland PL - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 1

Portugal PT - - - - - - - - -

Romania RO - - - - - - - - -

Slovakia SK - - - - - - - - -

Slovenia SI - - - - - - - - -

+Spain ES - - - - - - - - -

Sweden SE - 1 - - - - - - -

United Kingdom* UK 1 1 - 2 1 - 1 2 2

Sum 71 3 17 4 14 8 4 4 8 9



8.1.7 Compliance to Mandatory Measures

Since mandatory measures are usually mandating socially desirable behaviour into law and then using reinforcement mechanisms such as courts, police or fines to ensure people will obey the law, the estimated levels of compliance to mandatory soil conservation policies in the EU-27 are further outputs of the present study. Experts were invited to choose between different levels of compliance regarding soil protection policies according to their estimation. Again it has to be noted that even including the fact that mostly experts from agricultural ministries where involved in the present study, the results have to be considered as individual statements and not as institutional reportings.

A high level of reluctance towards inserting estimated percentages of compliance of single policy measures was perceived by the experts’ statements. Out of 231 Mandatory measures that were added to the database, 104 were not ranked in one of the proposed categories: 0-50%, 50-75%, 75-90% and 100% compliance (Table 20). Many experts chose to select the category 100% compliance (67) for the majority of reported policies. Less often, a compliance level of 0-50% (12) or 50-75% (3) was reported, which can be interpreted as an insufficient performance of these policies. The compliance level ‘75-90%’ chosen for 45 policies may reflect the general acceptance of a policy, with some minor implementation or monitoring problems.

Table 20: Estimated percentage of compliance to MM (numbers per category) Member State Code --- 0-50% 50-75% 75-90% 100%

Austria* AT 18 3 2 - 10

Belgium* BE 7 - - 1 -

Bulgaria BG 1 5 - - -

Cyprus CY 1 - - - -

+Czech Republic

CZ 4 - - - -

Denmark DK 1 - - - -

Estonia EE - - - 4 4

Finland FI - - - 7 -

France FR - - - - 5

Germany* DE 2 1 - 2 5

Greece GR 1 1 - 1 5

Hungary HU 2 - - 1 -

Ireland IE 2 - - - -

Italy* IT 16 - 1 7 22

Latvia LV 3 - - - -

+Lithuania LT 2 - - - -

Luxembourg LU - 2 - - -

Malta MT 7 - - - -

Netherlands NL - - - 1 -

Poland PL 1 - - - -

Portugal PT - - - 3 3

Romania RO - - - 1 -

Slovakia SK 1 - - 10 -

Slovenia SI - - - 6 3

+Spain ES 6 - - - -

Sweden SE - - - - 3

United Kingdom*

UK 29 - - 1 7

Sum 231 104 12 3 45 67



8.1.8 Effectiveness of Sanctions

Mandatory measures with environmental purposes are usually implemented under the threat of sanctions. Regarding agricultural soil conservation, Cross Compliance schemes gained major importance apart from national law and regulations. The participating experts were invited to estimate the performance of sanctions on the MM they contributed. Experts were considerable less reluctant to do so comparing to the evaluation of compliance.

Out of the 231 policies evaluated, only twelve policies were estimated to have a lacking sanctioning system. 29 policies where not classified while all remaining ones were understood to have effective sanctions in practice or that sanctions were not relevant.

Table 21: Effectiveness of Sanctions for Mandatory Measures (numbers per category) Member State Code --- Yes, but these sanctions are

not sufficiently effective Yes, there are effective sanctions in practice

No, sanctions are not relevant

Austria* AT 8 - 21 4

Belgium* BE - - 8 -

Bulgaria BG - - 6 -

Cyprus CY - - 1 -

+Czech Republic CZ 4 - - -

Denmark DK - - 1 -

Estonia EE - 1 7 -

Finland FI - - 7 -

France FR - - 5 -

Germany* DE - 1 8 1

Greece GR - 1 7 -

Hungary HU 2 - 1 -

Ireland IE - - 2 -

Italy* IT 4 - 42 -

Latvia LV - - 3 -

+Lithuania LT - 1 1 -

Luxembourg LU - - 2 -

Malta MT - - 7 -

Netherlands NL - - 1 -

Poland PL - - 1 -

Portugal PT - - 6 -

Romania RO - - 1 -

Slovakia SK - - 11 -

Slovenia SI 1 8 - -

+Spain ES 6 - - -

Sweden SE - - 3 -

United Kingdom* UK 4 - 33 -

Sum 29 12 185 5



8.1.9 Less Favoured Area Payments and Agricultural Soil Protection

Describing categories and particular aspects of VIBMs within the EU initiatives towards environmental protection and agricultural policy, Less Favoured Area (LFA) payments play a certain part. As one of the single measures implemented in the Rural Development Plans (RDP) of the Member States, the impact of LFA payments on agricultural soil conservation was evaluated by the experts’ statements. Professionals from 13 countries listed LFA payments as relevant soil conservation policies. LFA payments represented little less than 20% of the contributed VIBMs in the survey.

Table 22: Soil protection implemented via LFA payme nts (numbers per category) Member State Code yes no

Austria* AT 1 6

Belgium* BE - 1

Bulgaria BG 1 4

Cyprus CY 1 -

+Czech Republic CZ 1 -

Denmark DK - 6

Estonia EE 1 5

Finland FI 5 -

France FR 1 10

Germany* DE 1 23

Greece GR - 3

Hungary HU - 1

Ireland IE 1 -

Italy* IT 4 15

Latvia LV 1 -

+Lithuania LT - 1

Luxembourg LU - 6

Malta MT 1 12

Netherlands NL - 1

Poland PL - 2

Portugal PT - 2

Romania RO 5 1

Slovakia SK 2 2

Slovenia SI - 5

+Spain ES - -

Sweden SE - 4

United Kingdom* UK - 9

Sum 145 26 119



8.1.10 Amount of Compensation Payments

Since mostly financial incentives are provided to farmers to convince them to carry out certain conservation measures, the area related compensation payments for different measures vary between the Member States. Only about half of the 166 VIBM were ranked in the categories: <100, 100-300, 300-500, and more than 500 € per hectare. Most area related payments were found in the category 100-300 €/ha while Malta resulted to be the single Member State with the highest numerical number of soil conservation measures passing the compensation level of 500 €/ha (Table 23).

Table 23: Compensation paid for VIBM (numbers per c ategory) Member State Code --- <100 €/ha 100-300 €/ha 300-5 00 €/ha >500 €/ha

Austria* AT 6 - 1 - -

Belgium* BE - - 1 - -

Bulgaria BG 2 1 1 - 1

Cyprus CY 1 - - - -

+Czech Republic CZ 2 - - - -

Denmark DK 4 1 3 - 1

Estonia EE 1 3 1 1 -

Finland FI 4 - - 1 -

France FR 11 - - - -

Germany* DE - 9 12 3 1

Greece GR - 1 1 1 -

Hungary HU 1 - - 1 -

Ireland IE - - 1 - -

Italy* IT 11 - 6 3 2

Latvia LV - - 1 - -

+Lithuania LT 1 - 1 - -

Luxembourg LU 3 2 - - 1

Malta MT 2 1 1 2 7

Netherlands NL 1 - - - -

Poland PL 2 - - - -

Portugal PT 2 - - - -

Romania RO 5 1 1 - -

Slovakia SK 7 1 2 - 1

Slovenia SI 4 - 1 - -

+Spain ES 1 - - - -

Sweden SE - 2 1 2 -

United Kingdom* UK 7 2 1 - -

Sum 166 78 24 36 14 14



8.1.11 Total Budget of Voluntary Incentive Based Me asures

106 Voluntary Incentive Based Measures were ranked according to the total budget of the measure within the categories: <100.000 €, <1Mio €, <10 Mio €, <100 Mio €, <1.000 Mio € and >1.000 Mio €. Most entries were found in the category “<100 Mio €” and few policies passed a budget of 1.000 Mio € (Table 24). Higher budgeted measures (e.g. RDP, national programmes) tend to include a variety of single sub-measures that were not individually presented in the survey. In some cases, experts might have provided the whole budget assigned to the direct payments.

Table 24: Total Budget of Voluntary Incentive Based Measures (numbers per category) Member State Code --- <100.000 € <1Mio € <10 Mio € <100 Mio € <1.000 Mio € >1.000 Mio€

Austria* AT 2 1 1 2 - 1 -

Belgium* BE - - - 1 - - -

Bulgaria BG 3 - - - 2 - -

Cyprus CY 1 - - - - - -

+Czech Republic CZ 2 - - - - - -

Denmark DK - - 1 3 5 - -

Estonia EE 2 - - - 3 1 -

Finland FI 5 - - - - - -

France FR 9 - - - - 1 1

Germany* DE 2 5 2 6 5 5 -

Greece GR - - - 1 1 1 -

Hungary HU 1 - - - - - 1

Ireland IE - - - - - - 1

Italy* IT 6 2 2 4 5 2 1

Latvia LV - - - - 1 - -

+Lithuania LT 1 - - 1 - - -

Luxembourg LU 3 2 1 - - - -

Malta MT 10 - - - 3 - -

Netherlands NL - - - 1 - - -

Poland PL 2 - - - - - -

Portugal PT - - - - - 2 -

Romania RO - - - - - 6 1

Slovakia SK 3 1 1 3 2 1 -

Slovenia SI - - - 1 3 1 -

+Spain ES 1 - - - - - -

Sweden SE - - - - 3 2 -

United Kingdom* UK 7 - 1 - - 1 1

Sum 166 60 11 9 23 33 24 6



8.1.12 Spatial uptake of Voluntary Incentive Based Measures

When asked to contribute information on the planned and actual uptake of Voluntary Incentive Based Measures, experts reported more frequently on the planned than the actual uptake. Similar to the previous chapter, the planned uptake area was referred for 60 policies with the categories: <100 ha, <1.000 ha, <10.000 ha <100.000 ha, <1 Mio ha and >1 Mio ha (Table 25). Data on the actual uptake of Voluntary Incentive Based Measures may have been much more difficult to obtain by the participating professionals. In many countries actual and planned uptake of measures was presented identical or similar. This could be interpreted as a full spatial implementation of the corresponding policies or, when the numbers for the actual uptake of a measure are smaller reflecting a certain state of policy implementation. Most measures were found to be calculated for an area uptake of more than 10.000 ha while few policies were designed for an uptake area of less than 100 ha.

Table 25: Actual and planned uptake of VIBM (number s per category) Member State

actual

planned

actual

planned

actual

planned

actual

planned

actual

planned

actual

planned

actual

planned

Not specified

<100 ha <1.000 ha <10.000 ha <100.000 ha <1 Mio ha >1 Mio ha

Austria* 3 3 - - - - - - 3 2 - 1 1 1

Belgium* - - - - - - 1 1 - - - - - -

Bulgaria 4 3 - - - 1 1 - - 1 - - - -

Cyprus 1 1 - - - - - - - - - - - -

+Czech Republic

2 2 - - - - - - - - - - - -

Denmark 4 4 - - 1 - 1 2 1 2 2 1 - -

Estonia 1 1 - - - - - - 3 2 2 3 - -

Finland - - - - 1 - - 1 1 1 1 1 2 2

France 11 11 - - - - - - - - - - - -

Germany* 8 - 1 1 2 2 5 6 6 9 2 5 1 2

Greece 2 1 - - - - - - - - 1 2 - -

Hungary - 1 - - - - - - - - - - 2 1

Ireland - 1 - - - - - - - - 1 - - -

Italy* 9 4 1 2 1 2 5 5 5 4 1 5 - -

Latvia 1 - - - - - - - - 1 - - - -

+Lithuania 1 1 - - - - 1 1 - - - - - -

Luxembourg 2 2 1 1 1 - 2 3 - - - - - -

Malta 1 1 1 1 1 1 10 10 - - - - - -

Netherlands 1 1 - - - - - - - - - - - -

Poland 2 2 - - - - - - - - - - - -

Portugal 2 - - - - - - - - - - 2 - -

Romania 6 3 - - - - - - - 1 - 1 1 2

Slovakia 6 6 - - 1 1 1 1 - - 1 1 2 2

Slovenia 4 2 - - - - - 2 1 1 - - - -

+Spain 1 1 - - - - - - - - - - - -

Sweden - - - - - - 1 - - 1 4 4 - -

United Kingdom* 6 9 - - - - - - 1 1 2 - 1 -

Sum (166) 78 60 4 5 8 7 28 32 21 26 17 26 10 10



8.1.13 Contracting period of the Voluntary Incentiv e Based Measures

As a further attribute of Voluntary Incentive Based Measures, experts were asked to classify the contracting periods of the policies according to one of the following categories: <5 years, <10 years, <20 years and no time limit (Table 26). Out of the 166 VIBM described, 136 were classified regarding their contracting periods. Most measures offered contracting periods of 5 to 10 years, but numerous measures offering contracts shorter than 5 years were found, especially in Malta. Few VIBM without time limitations were reported from Austria, Denmark and Slovenia.

Table 26: Contracting period of VIBM (numbers per c ategory) Member State Code --- <5 years <10 years <20 years no time limit

Austria* AT 2 - 4 - 1

Belgium* BE - - 1 - -

Bulgaria BG 1 4 - - -

Cyprus CY - 1 - - -

+Czech Republic CZ 2 - - - -

Denmark DK 2 - 5 - 2

Estonia EE - 6 - - -

Finland FI - 4 1 - -

France FR 1 - 10 - -

Germany* DE 1 6 17 1 -

Greece GR - - 3 - -

Hungary HU 1 - 1 - -

Ireland IE - 1 - - -

Italy* IT 3 5 11 3 -

Latvia LV - 1 - - -

+Lithuania LT 1 1 - - -

Luxembourg LU 1 3 2 - -

Malta MT 1 12 - - -

Netherlands NL - 1 - - -

Poland PL 1 1 - - -

Portugal PT - - 2 - -

Romania RO 1 2 1 3 -

Slovakia SK 5 2 3 1 -

Slovenia SI - - 1 - 4

+Spain ES 1 - - - -

Sweden SE 1 - 4 - -

United Kingdom* UK 5 - 3 2 -

Sum 166 30 50 69 10 7



8.1.14 Further Aspects of Increasing Awareness Meas ures and Private Initiatives

Out of the 35 IAM+PI contributed by the experts, 17 were considered as bottom-up approaches while 11 were seen as top-down measures. Measures listed within this category consisted in:

- Advisory services for farmers, land managers and other stakeholders such as teacher and administrative persons on soil protection problems and adequate soil management including field days

- Action groups working on soil protection - Activities to increase public awareness on soil related issues - Promotion of organic farming - Introduction of new techniques/technologies to farmers - Reduction of the negative impact of agriculture on drinking water - Exchange of knowledge between farmers, scientists and officials about Conservation

Tillage and No-Tillage. - Best practice Manuals, Action Planes and Codes - Promotion of Conservation Agriculture/Conservation Tillage - GIS databases and modelling of soil erosion - Preventing of wind erosion or problems with clay in soil - Promotion of agri-environmental programmes - Projects to reduce losses of nutrients to air and water from livestock and crop

production

Most IAM+PI are found in agricultural consultation services and research, but there are attempts to even raise public interest on soil related issues. As this category was less focused by the survey and contributions were only received from ten Member States, more civic engagements in this field may be expected.


8.1.15 Country Fiches

In the following chapter, Member States’ efforts towards agricultural soil conservation are presented in ‘Country Fiches’. The categories ‘Implementation Level (Region)”, ‘Year of Implementation”, Name of Policy/Measure” and ‘Description” that were part of the policy attributes considered are presented as they were contributed by the participating experts.

As mentioned in the chapter 7.1.3 data quality and quantity varied according to the experts’ level of participation. Therefore, the ‘Country Fiches’ do not aim to draw a complete image on soil conservation efforts in the Member States, but represent a descriptive list of the most important measures regarding agricultural soil conservation according to the participating experts. Not all regions or levels (some regions in Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain) could be covered with expert statements in the survey. An additional literature review was only performed for countries where no expert data could have been gained for the survey project (Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Spain). A detailed description of every single measure listed in the survey can be found in the final database jointly delivered with this report.


8.1.16 AT - Austria

Region Category Year Policy/ Measure Description

Austria mm 2008 Standards for crop rotations where applicable Holdings with a stocking density of less than 0,5 LU/ha which have more than 5 ha arable area may cultivate cereals (including spelt, durum, barley, oats, rye, triticale and durum) and maize on a maximum of 85 % of their arable areas.

2005 Appropriate machinery use Soil tillage on utilized agricultural areas with agricultural machines is not permitted on soils where the ground is frozen, waterlogged, flooded or has a complete snow cover. A minimum distance must be kept when working land is close to water.

2005 Arable Stubble Management The burning of straw on stubble fields is prohibited. Exceptions must be approved by the competent authorities.

2005 Avoiding the encroachment of unwanted vegetation on agricultural land

The land must be maintained in a satisfactory agricultural condition by means of suitable maintenance measures, thus avoiding the encroachment of trees or bushes and desertification. This does not apply to land for which specific conservation requirements or other contractual requirements provide otherwise.

2005 Minimum land management reflecting site-specific conditions

Under certain conditions (where the ground is frozen, waterlogged, flooded or where the ground has a complete snow cover) it is not permitted to work the soil on agriculturally utilised land with agricultural machinery. Above that a minimum distance must be kept when working land is close to water.

2005 Minimum livestock stocking rates or/and appropriate regimes

Clearing as a minimum maintenance measure is only permitted on a maximum of 50 % of the arable and permanent grassland areas on the farm. On all other arable and permanent grassland areas, the vegetation must be used each year by harvesting or using as pasture. In this context tended pastures, mountain pastures, scattered meadows and Alpine pastures do not count as permanent grassland.

2005 Minimum soil cover Arable land which is not used for agricultural production must be vegetated and tended during the vegetation period (normally from April to September); the greening has to take place before 1 April. There are only exceptions from the obligation of greening and from the annual tending, if, for reasons of nature conservation, a deviating procedure has been provided for. Since 2008 areas used for wine growing, fruit growing or hops growing, and on which, for the purpose of soil regeneration a rest period of at least one vegetation period takes place between grubbing and replanting, have to be vegetated during the rest period.

2005 Protection of permanent pasture There is a general ban on ploughing on slopes with an average gradient greater than 15 % (exceptions: the exchange of permanent grassland for other types of agricultural land, ploughing a maximum of 0,5 ha of permanent grassland per farm where the permanent grassland makes up more than 80 % of the area of the farm, ploughing for the cultivation of permanent or perennial crops) and for grassland on water buffer strips with a minimum width of 20 m bordering standing water (with a water surface area of at least 1 ha) an 10 m bordering flowing water (with a bottom width of 5m or more).

2005 Retain Terraces Terraces must not be eliminated, which means actively destroyed. Only those terraces whose elimination is explicitly provided for within the framework of official agricultural procedures are exempted.

2005 Retention of landscape features, including where Landscape features enjoying special protection and registered under conservation orders


Region Category Year Policy/ Measure Description appropriate the prohibition of the grubbing of olive trees

and decisions may not be removed. This includes for example natural monuments.

2003 Action Programme 2008 Protection of water from contamination by nitrates

1975 Forestry Law, BGBl. Nr. 440/1975 as amended on BGBl. I Nr. 55/2007

Regulation of Forestry

vibm 1995 ‘Agri-Environmental Programme” for the promotion of an environmentally compatible, extensive agriculture which preserves natural areas of living

The agri-environmental programmes ÖPUL aims at promoting environmentally friendly and extensive agriculture that protects natural habitats. Furthermore valuable and endangered cultural landscapes shall be maintained.

Lower Austria mm 1992 Waste Management Law of Lower Austria, LGBl. 8240-4

Regulation of Waste Management

1988 Soil Protection Law of Lower Austria, Number 6160-4 S.P.L. shall reduce soil contamination, wind and water erosion and compaction and improve the fertility and health of soil.

1988 Use of Plant Protection Products in Agriculture Law, Number 6170-2

Use of Plant Protection Products in Agriculture

1975 Land Consolidation Law, Number 6650-6 Regulation of Land Consolidation

vibm 2002 Soil protection plants/ Windbreaks Plant different trees to reduce soil erosion

1995 Extensification of riverbanks (buffer strips) The measure Ökopunkte is an additional programme in the context of the ÖPUL 2007 that mainly aims to support extensive farming.

iam_pi 2007 European Land and Soil Alliance (ELSA) The Land and Soil Alliance regards itself as a network, in which towns and municipalities cooperate on an equal level, and maintain the exchange of information and experiences regarding the topic of soil protection.

Upper Austria mm 2006 Precaution by soil limits of heavy metals Limits of heavy metals in soil must not be exceeded.

1991 Certificate of expert knowledge in plant protection / pesticide use

Only people who have demonstrable expert knowledge in pesticide use are allowed to use pesticides.

1991 General obligations of soil protection Everyone is obligated to conserve soil, above all to avoid soil contamination.

1991 Obligation for manure storage capacity of 6 months Every farm with livestock is obligated to have a manure storage capacity of 6 months.

1991 Plan on improvement of soil If soil is damaged or soil functions are affected the user of soil has - in cooperation with the advisory service for soil protection - to submit a plan with improvement measures to the authority.

1991 Regulation of sewage sludge A regulation based on the Soil Protection Law. Use of sewage sludge is forbidden on grassland and others. Quality and quantity control.

1991 Soil protection law of Upper Austria It is a law for the preservation, protection and improvement of soil condition for all soils except forest soils; including regulation of sewage sludge use, pesticide use and fertilizer/manure use in agriculture.

1991 Soil survey, soil monitoring The federal state government has analysed soil samples (nutrients, contamination, erosion, etc...) all over the region and collected the data.

1991 Triennial soil information report The federal state government has to make and publish a triennial report on the condition of Upper Austrian soils including a soil development programme.



vibm 2007 Regional project for groundwater protection Financial incentives for farmers with the target of groundwater protection

1991 Encouragement of soil protection measures The Upper Austrian government can encourage soil protection measures e.g. plant protection, cultivation, fertilisation, technical and other measures.

iam_pi 2007 Soil Protection Festival The federal state government arranges publicly available festivals where information about soil and soil protection is given in a playful, enjoyable and plain way.

2000 Advisory service for water protection An association for advising farmers to keep the ground water clean - considering the connection between soil and groundwater.

1991 Advisory service for soil protection The advisory service for soil protection was established to increase soil awareness - above all for farmers. Main tasks are advise, information, education, events, training, research and projects, as well as cooperation concerning the execution of the soil protection law.

Salzburg mm 2002 Use of sewage sludge on soil Prohibition and restriction for the use of sewage sludge

2001 Application and Introduction of Materials on to or into the Soil

Restriction on the usage of certain materials on soils.

2001 General obligations for soil protection The obligation aims to protect or restore the functions of the soil on a permanent sustainable basis.

2001 General principles for agriculture practices The principles of good practice in agricultural soil use are the permanent protection of the soil's fertility and of the soil's functional capacity as a natural resource.

2001 Measures for soil improvement The property owner and the occupant of a real property shall be obligated to take measures to prevent harmful soil changes and improve the soil conditions.

1989 Soil survey - soil monitoring The federal state government collects data all over the region and provides an analysis of soil samples (nutrients, contamination, erosion, etc...).

vibm 2001 Encouragement of soil protection measures Soil protection measures, which are additional to the mandatory measures, can be additionally granted by the federal government of Salzburg.

1998 Regional project for groundwater and maintenance of grassland

The project supports the protection of groundwater and the maintenance of grassland.

iam_pi 2007 Certification course for practical work on permanent grassland

This course was designed for multiplicators (farmers as well as for teachers of the agricultural secondary schools) to improve their knowledge on soil as fertile soils are the basis especially of organic farming.

2003 Soil conservation advisory service The soil conservation advisory service was established to increase soil awareness especially among the farmers, the main-users of soils, by advise, information, education, training, articles, field days, events, lectures, exhibition, best practise examples, implementation of new technologies, supporting research, projects.

1950 Advisory service for agronomy and grassland management

The advisory service gives information, teaches and trains farmers, organises field days, helps as far as possible to solve problems, represents the interests of the farmers in public in agronomy and especially in grassland themes.

1950 Soil conservation field days (workshops) At the field days new technologies are presented outdoors at work and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed, in addition experts give information-lectures indoors.

Tyrol mm 2000 ‘Field’ protection law 2000 Protection of agricultural area and outdoor infrastructure, including the use of slurry.

1997 Regional planning and development law 2006 Regulations for planning, use and development of the area


8.1.17 BE – Belgium


Flanders mm 2005 Appropriate machinery use Farmers may not use fertilizers on water-saturated and flooded agricultural land.

2005 Arable stubble management No stubble burning is allowed.

2005 Determination of the carbon content and acidity and the pursuit of the advice

Farmers have to let determinate the carbon content and acidity (pH) of their arable land. This determination is needed for every 10 ha of arable land. If the carbon content is too low, farmers have to follow the advice for crop rotation and/or take appropriate measures. If the pH is to low, farmers have to lime.


Farmers shall apply appropriate measures to ensure a minimum soil cover on highly erosion-sensitive parcels.

2005 Minimum soil cover Farmers shall apply appropriate measures to ensure a minimum soil cover on highly erosion-sensitive parcels.

2005 Standards for crop rotation where applicable Farmers have to let determinate the carbon content of their land. This determination is needed for every 10 ha of arable land. If the carbon content is too low, farmers have to follow the advice for crop rotation and/or take appropriate measures such as a green cover in winter.

2004 Prescribed use of sewage sludge Farmers have to respect the maximum quantities of sludge which may be applied to the soil.

vibm 2004 Agri-environmental commitments to combat erosion By laying out and maintaining grass buffer zones, grass corridors or erosion pools and dams, the consequence of erosion can be reduced. By applying erosion combating cultivation methods such as direct sowing and non turning tillage erosion can be tackled at source.

Wallonia mm 2005 Prohibition of culture of plants weeded or comparable (*) on pieces at the risk

Prohibition of culture of plants weeded or comparable (*) on pieces at the risk, except if a grass band is installed on the part located at bottom of the slope and in edge of the piece in question. This prohibition is not application in certain cases (e.g.: if the contiguous piece located at the bottom of the piece at risk of erosion is a pasture). This grass band must be installed before sowing of the weeded plant and for one minimal duration equivalent to the duration of this one and to answer the following requirements: - the minimal width of the grass band is 6 meters; - composition of sowing: the grass band must be sown with a mixture made up of graminaceous pasture or the graminaceous pasture ones and leguminous; - other conditions: it cannot be grazed and in the event of mowing, the mowing can be carried out only after July 1. A piece of culture is considered at risk when more than 50% of its surface (or minimum 50 ares) present a higher slope or equal to 10%.


8.1.18 BG - Bulgaria


Bulgaria mm 2007 National GAEC Standard 1.1: It is obligatory to have at least 40% of the crops with unbroken/unseparated surface to be included in the land under common rotation

This MM is standard from GAEC to ensure Minimum soil cover in order to protect soil from erosion

2007 National GAEC Standard 1.2: Using riverside area at a distance of less than the minimum of 5 m from the river for intensive crop production is forbidden.

This standard protects biodiversity and helps to reduce soil erosion

2007 National GEAC Standard 1.3: Retaining and maintaining the existing terraces within a farmer’s block and/or agricultural parcel and the conclusion of agreements between the land users within a particular physical block is obligatory.

To retain exciting terraces in a level of physical block

2007 National Standard 2.1: Monoculture growing of flax, sunflower (Helianthus annuus), sugar beet and peas on a single agricultural parcel for more than two consecutive years is forbidden.

This GAEC standard is to protect soil organic matter.

2007 National Standard 2.2: It is obligatory for the arable crops stubbles to be ploughed into the soil in order to create favourable conditions for their transformation into organic matter and their burning is forbidden.

To provide better conditions for transformation of the vegetations that left after the harvest in to organic matter

2007 National Standard 3.1: It is obligatory that through the choice of appropriate agricultural machinery and appropriate cultivation technologies, secondary soil congestion for crops with unseparated surface is not allowed

To protect the soil structure.

vibm 2008 Measure 121’Modernisation of Agricultural Holdings’ Improve the overall performance of agriculture and protect and conserve the environment

2008 Measure 143 ‘Provision of Farm Advisory and Extension Services in Bulgaria and Romania’

2008 Measure 214 ‘Agri-environmental payments’ This measure is obligatory to be implemented by all the EU Member States.

2008 SW 1: Decrease of nitrate pollution This VIBM is part from Sub-measure 3: Soil and Water Protection Scheme (SW) from Measure 214 ‘Agri-environmental payments’, RDP 2007 - 2013. The main objectives are: - Support the introduction of sustainable crop rotations incorporating wintertime green cover and legumes (beans, soy, lucernes, clover) -Support the nutrient management planning (including the storage and application of livestock manures) - Support the increased use of crop rotations which are designed according to specific criteria for a) the control of soil erosion (slight to moderate) and b) the reduction of nutrient losses (especially nitrate leaching).



2008 SW 2: Soil erosion control Support farmers; Decrease soil pollution; Prevention of degradation processes in agricultural land threatened or affected by erosion; Contribute to preservation, restoration and improvement of soil fertility and ecosystem functions of the soil cover.


8.1.19 CY - Cyprus


Cyprus mm 2005 Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC)

GAEC is a group of agricultural measures friendly to the environment that aims to protect the soil (erosion, structure, organic matter, and the achievement of the minimum level of conservation of the landscape).

vibm 2007 Incentive measures in the framework of the R.D.P. Measures that aim to protect the environment and improve the competitiveness

iam_pi 2002 Good Agricultural Practices It is a group of agricultural practices concerning the sustainable and appropriate use of fertilisers, manure, sludge and recycled water


8.1.20 CZ - Czech Republic

+ no expert contribution could be registered for this country. A minor literature review only covered a part of the soil conservation efforts in this Member State and can not aim at drawing a complete picture


+Czech Republic mm 2004 Arable stubble management No burning of plant residuals on field blocks.

2004 Minimum land management reflecting site specific conditions

No destruction of landscape features, particularly field banks/hedgerows, terraces, windbreaks, grasslands in alluvial plains and field paths using natural slopes and respecting contour lines, eventually (field paths) accompanied by side ditches, as well as surface water streams and water bodies)

2004 Minimum land management reflecting site specific conditions for cropping

Exclusion of wide-row crops (such as) maize, potatoes, beet, broad beans, soya-beans, and sunflowers on field blocks whose average slope exceeds 12 degrees.

1997 Protection of permanent pasture No change of grasslands into arable land.

vibm 2000 Support for Less Favoured Areas (LFAs) Support for Less Favoured Areas (LFAs) and AESs was introduced in 1998. In 2000 the government issued a decree, which harmonised the support of LFAs and AESs and introduced the concept of good agricultural practice. A mixture of new and already existing AEMs was proposed under this programme, later developing into the RDP.

1990 Agri-environmental Measures With the EU accession, a package of horizontal AESs has been implemented in the framework of the horizontal RDP 2004-2006, according to Reg. (EC) 1257/1999 and Reg. (EC) 445/2002. Most of them are horizontal; only two are regional measures. Some former national AESs – such as organic farming, grassland maintenance and conversion of arable land into grassland - has been kept.


8.1.21 DE - Germany


Germany mm 2006 Particularly prohibition of tillage during the winter-month

Tillage is forbidden on 40 % of the arable farm land from each agricultural enterprise during the winter-months, after the harvest of the previous crop until 15. Of February in the following year.

2005 Avoidance of soil erosion Avoidance of soil erosion.

2005 Maintenance of soil organic matter Maintenance of soil organic matter which may include adherence to the annual cropping practices on agricultural sides on farm level, providing a humus balance or the identification of the humus content.

2005 Minimum level of maintenance: Avoiding the encroachment of unwanted vegetation on agricultural land

Adherence to the obligations concerning the encroachment of unwanted vegetation on agricultural land.

2005 Minimum level of maintenance: Retention of landscape features

Minimum level of maintenance: Retention of landscape features. Certain landscape elements are to be protected and should not be removed.

2005 Prevention of soil erosion Restriction or reduction of tillage during the critical period.

vibm 2004 Cultivation of intercrops To protect the soil against erosion and washout of nutrients, to promote biological activity and structuring of the soil and the protection of groundwater. After the main harvest the cultivation of intercrops is promoted.

2003 Direct drilling/ no tillage Mulch or direct seeding on arable land is promoted. These methods of cultivation can help to reduce the water erosion on potentially vulnerable areas.

1996 Mulch-seeding/reduced or no tillage Rests of crops, mostly straw, usually stay on the field during the winter months and the new seed is put under the mulch.

1988 Extensification of riverbanks (buffer strips) Extensification of riverbanks (buffer strips); Seeding of different grass types on riverbanks, very extensive land use without application of fertilizers, restriction on grazing for a minimum duration of 5 years.

iam_pi 1999 German Association for Conservation Agriculture (GKB)

GKB is the leading communication and information platform for all questions around Conservation Agriculture in Germany. It works as a non-profit-organization with the aim to demonstrate the benefits of conservation tillage and to promote the exchange of experience between farmers, consultants and scientists.

Baden-Württemberg vibm 2007 MEKA- Agri- environmental Programme Baden- Württemberg

Agri- environmental programme of the federal state of Baden- Württemberg



2007 Rural Development Programme Baden-Württemberg 2007-2013

Programme for the development of the rural areas in the federal state of Baden- Württemberg.

Bavaria vibm 2007 Cultivation measures according to the production branch

Cultivation measures according to the production branch - versatile crop rotation (min. 5 crops) resp. extensive crop rotation (max. 33 % intensive crops)

2007 Cultivation measures on a single field basis Cultivation measures on a single field basis (sowed green cover, winter green cover, agro ecologically sound cultivation measures, conversion of fields to grassland, green strip for the conservation of bodies of water and soil)

2007 Extensive cropping measures Protection and improvement of the environmental quality of agricultural land. Extensification of farming practices.

2007 Extensive grassland measures Protection and improvement of the environmental quality of meadows. Extensification of land use.

2007 Extensive pasture measures Extensification of farming practices on pastures.

2007 Grassland measures according to the production branch

Grassland measures according to the production branch (Environmentally oriented grassland usage, extensification of grassland usage by abandoning the use of mineral fertilizers) l.c. general prohibition of ploughing of grassland

2007 Organic farming on the entire agricultural holding

Compliance with Reg. (EC) 2091/92 on entire agricultural holding

Brandenburg vibm 2007 Integrated horticultural production Planting vegetation during the wintertime and planting vegetation on machine tracks and irrigation tracks.

2000 Cropping of legumes on recultivated agricultural land

Development and advancement of soil functions by cropping legumes on recultivated agricultural land.

Hesse vibm 2008 Hessian Integrated Agri-Environmental Programme

Measures against bad influences from Agriculture (organic farming, undersown crops, extensification of grassland)

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania vibm 2008 Prevention of soil erosion Cultivation of perennial feed crops to reduce the risk of soil erosion.

2000 Advancement of hedges and landscape elements

Advancement of hedges and landscape elements

1992 Organic farming Conversion of conventional farming practices to organic farming.

Lower Saxony iam_pi 2007 POLARIS information system, module erosion POLARIS is a GIS based database to calculate erosion and erosion risk (ABAG, erosion)

2006 Soil workshops for farmers At the workshop farmers learn to understand and estimate their soils

2004 Advisory services for sensitive areas Advices for sensitive areas mostly nearby rivers because of harmful substances in soil, milk and meat

2004 Bulletin of beet soil for farmers and advisors The bulletin informs farmers and advisors about the


Region Category Year Policy/ Measure Description application of beet soil which comes from the sugar refinery

2001 Workgroup of conservation agriculture An association of farmers, advisors of official institutions, companies who meet for field days, workshops, courses

1997 Quality objectives of soil of Lower Saxony: harmful substances, nutrients, erosion and soil sealing, compaction, organic matter

Information for advisers and public authorities about guidelines and recommendations of the theme erosion, compaction, organic matter

North Rhine -Westphalia vibm 2000 Erosion control Agri-environmental payment for five-year conservation tillage measures (mulch seeding or direct seeding, grass stripes) in a defined area with increased risk of soil erosion.

Rhineland- Palatinate iam_pi 2007 Nature protection plan for the entire agricultural enterprise

Necessary measures for each area are organized in a global plan for the whole agricultural enterprise

Saarland vibm 2007 Catch cropping and undersown crops This measure promotes the seeding of catch crops and intercrops.

2005 Mulch sowing, direct sowing Non ploughing tillage measures

2000 Grassland extensification Grassland fertilized with manure of max. 1,4 livestock units, no plant protective agents, max. 120kg/ha nitrogen application, at least 0,3 livestock units

2000 Organic farming Promotion of organic farming and conversion from conventional to organic farming.

Sachsen vibm 2007 AXIS 2: Durable conservation tillage / no tillage AXIS 2: durable conservation tillage / no tillage. Application in areas with water bodies at risk concerning Directive2000/60/EC for min. five years


8.1.22 DK - Denmark


Denmark mm 1980 Regulation of the use of fertilizers by agriculture and on plant cover

Agricultural enterprises must register in the Registry for Fertilizer Accounts in order to purchase fertilizer without paying a fee. The enterprise annually has to draw up fertilizer plans and fertilizer status accounts on the use of nitrogen. Consumption of nitrogen must not exceed the fixed nitrogen quota calculated and allotted yearly for the enterprise which is calculated as 10% below agro-economic optimum. Detected non-compliance is sanctioned with fines.

vibm 2007 Modernisation of agricultural holdings Articles 20(b)(i) and 26 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005

The purpose is to promote investments into new processes and technologies in agriculture, while also reducing undesirable effects on the surrounding society, e.g. technologies to overcome environmental problems

2007 Use of advisory services Article 20(a)(iv) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005

The advisory service can provide advice for staff in the agriculture and thereby increase the sectors capacity to farm sustainably and safeguard soil environment

2007 Vocational training and information actions; Article 20 (a) (1) of Regulation 1698/2005

The measure will include two sub-measures: 1) Promoting the agricultural, forestry and food processing sectors by supporting demonstration and diffusion of knowledge of new processes and technologies and 2) Training and information

1994 Establishment and management of set-aside border strips

Area payments for five years for replacement and special conservation of set-aside areas. The set-aside must be placed on border strips adjacent to lakes and watercourses

1990 Conservation by grazing or cutting on pasture and natural areas

Support is given for the conservation of pasture and natural areas in connection with yearly grazing or cutting. The beneficiary must also commit to not add plant protection products or fertilizers to the land during the commitment period, other than the manure that is left by grazing animals.

1990 Conversion to organic agricultural production Support will be granted for conversion to organic farming for cultivated agricultural areas during a 5-year commitment period.

1990 Extensive production on agricultural land Support will be granted for pesticide free farming during a 5-year commitment period. Support is paid for cultivated agricultural areas only. This measure supplements the obligations in the measure conversion to organic farming. The scheme will be open for both organic and conventional farmers.

1987 Establishment and management of wetlands Support is offered for establishment and sustainable management of wetlands on farm land geographically situated within special sensitive agricultural areas

1900 Establishment of landscape and biotope-improving vegetation, including shelter plants

Support shall be granted for non-remunerative investments linked to plantation of shelter plants on agricultural land

iam_pi 1900 Voluntary crop rotation, choice of crop according to soil, fertilization practices, use of Winter crops, planting of shelterbelts

In order to prevent wind and sand erosion and sub-optimal farming because of this, farmers voluntarily use crop rotation and choose their agricultural practices according to soil and wind conditions, they farm Winter crops in stead of Spring crops and plant shelter belts, spread animal manure in the Spring to avoid soil erosion etc.


8.1.23 EE - Estonia


Estonia mm 2007 In case of field work, cultivation stability of soil must be considered. It is allowed to cultivate fields at a time when the machinery used will not leave deeper traces, compared to cultivation depth.

Machinery used on cultivation does not leave a deeper trace than cultivation depth i.e. do not compact the soil.

2007 It is prohibited to burn dead grass, hay and straw on agricultural land.

Burning dead grass, hay and straw is not allowed on agricultural land.

2005 § 65 Soil protection requirements Protection of soil during extraction of mineral resources.

2004 § 12 Maximum limits for dangerous substances in soil, groundwater, surface water, seawater, sediments and organisms

Limits for dangerous substances in soils.

2004 Maximum allowed limits of dangerous substances in earth

Maximum allowed limits of dangerous substances in earth are set up.

2004 Plant Protection Act requirements Requirements for plant protection products, having also effect on soil.

2002 Requirements for use of waste water sludge Requirements for use of waste water sludge are set.

1994 Water Act requirements Requirements for maintaining water quality, but also having effect on soil quality.

vibm 2007 Agri-environmental supports Includes sub measures: support for environmentally friendly management; support for organic production; support for keeping animals of local endangered breeds, support for growing plants of local varieties; support for the maintenance of semi-natural habitats

2005 Natura 2000 support for agricultural land To ensure conformity with nature protection requirements in Natura 2000 areas.

2004 Environmentally Friendly Production Scheme Following environmentally friendly agricultural practices

2004 Meeting standards support Manure storages must meet standards

2004 Support for less favoured areas The aim of the measure is to maintain the countryside through continual use of agricultural land and to promote systems of sustainable agricultural production, supporting the improvement of the environment and the countryside by the maintenance of lands.

2004 Support to Organic Production Support organic production practices


8.1.24 ES – Spain



+Spain mm 2005 Decret 824/2005 on the use of fertilizers

2005 Decrete 2352/2004 on the linkage of direct payments to the common agricultural policy

Implementing of GAEC via Cross Compliance and adaption of Spanish legislation to European law

2005 Minimum Soil Cover

2002 Law16/2002, on the prevention and the integrated management of contamination

2002 Soil Protection Measures Comply with EU regulation (CE) n° 1259/1999

1998 Law 10/1998 on waste management

vibm 2007 Measures of the Rural Development plans 18 Rural Development Plans in Spain exist on a regional level. Each Plan contains a variety of soil related measures (Agri- environmental payments etc.)

iam_pi 2004 Good Environmental Practices in the professional familiy: Agriculture

The manual describes several Good Environmental Practices in Agriculture

2000 Buenas Prácticas Agrarias


8.1.25 FI - Finland


Finland mm 2006 Cross compliance/Statutory management requirements/Plant protection products directive (91/414/EEC) requirements

The right use of the approved products and registered preparations.

2005 Cross compliance/Good agricultural and environmental condition GAEC/Minimum level of maintenance

To ensure a minimum level of maintenance and avoid the deterioration of habitants: permanent pasture must mainly be used for the main purpose, small groups of trees, bushes and patches of rock located within arable land must mainly be retained, the control of wild oats must be ensured.

2005 Cross compliance/Good agricultural and environmental condition GAEC/Soil erosion

Protecting soil from erosion: untilled headland, plant-covered set-asides, limited amount of seed of nitrogen-fixing plants in groundwater areas, managed uncultivated arable land must be covered with growth (with grass covered and with green set-asides must be mown taking into account the protection of wild birds and mammals), also stubble set-asides and untilled bare set-asides must be mown aiming to prevent weeds from spreading.

2005 Cross compliance/Good agricultural and environmental condition GAEC/Soil organic matter

Straw on arable land should not be burned (with certain exceptions).

2005 Cross compliance/Good agricultural and environmental condition GAEC/Soil structure

Preserving the structure of the soil: driving heavy machinery on wet arable/managed uncultivated land should be avoided.

2005 Cross compliance/Statutory management requirements/Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC) requirements

Regulates fertilization, the use and storage of manure.

2005 Cross compliance/Statutory management requirements/Sewage Sludge Directive (86/278/EEC) requirements

Regulating the use of sewage sludge in agriculture

Manner-Suomi vibm 2008 Rural Development Programme for Mainland Finland/Axis 2/Non-productive investments

Promote water conservation and maintain and increase the biodiversity of the agricultural environment

2007 Rural Development Programme for Mainland Finland 2007–2013/Axis 2/Basic measures relating to agri-environmental payments

Environmental planning and monitoring of farm practices, Set-aside with plant cover (green set-aside, game set-aside and landscape set-aside); Fertilisation of arable crops, Fertilisation of horticultural crops, headlands and filter strips

2007 Rural Development Programme for Mainland Finland/Axis 2/Additional measures relating to agri-environmental payments

Plant cover in winter and reduced tilling, Plant cover in winter (in support areas A and B), Intensified plant cover in winter (in support areas A and B), crop diversification (in support areas A and B), Extensive grassland production (in support areas A and B), Cultivation of catch plants (in support areas A and B), Extensive grassland production (in support areas A and B), Spreading of manure during the growing season, Use of mulch in perennial horticultural crops, Use of pest monitoring methods (horticultural farms)

2007 Rural Development Programme for Mainland Finland/Axis 2/Special measures relating to agri- environmental payments

Establishment and management of riparian zones; Management of multifunctional wetlands. Arable farming in groundwater areas; Runoff water treatment methods (Controlled subsurface drainage and irrigation, Recycling of drainage water); Organic production; Management of traditional biotopes; Enchanting of biological and landscape diversity; Incorporation of liquid manure into the soil; Long-term grass cultivation of the peaty arable land



2007 Rural Development Programme for Mainland Finland/Axis 4/Agri-environment special measures (214) which is implemented by LEADER

The measure is implementing 2 agri-environment special measures management of multifunctional wetlands and management of traditional biotopes.

iam_pi 2008 Pilot project on increasing the effectiveness of water protection measures in agriculture 2008-2010

The objective of the project is to apply the most efficient water protection measures (include soil protection) in different situations, to test in practice the suitability of the measures on farms, and assess the environmental impacts and cost-efficiency of the measures on the farm, local, regional and watercourse area level. Pilot project is located in South-Western Finland, but its results can be later used in the whole country.


8.1.26 FR - France


France mm 2007 AEM-Complementary measures for fertilizers and pesticides

These requirements are intended to establish a link between farm payments (for agri-environmental measures and Less favoured regions) and the compliance requirements regarding the environment, public health, and animal and plant health

2005 GAEC I Establishing minimum soil coverage

2005 GAEC II Prohibition of burning stubbles

2005 GAEC III Establishing of a diversity of crop rotations

2005 GAEC IV Regulation of Water takings for irrigation use of arable crops

vibm 2007 AEM-National-A Voluntary agro-environmental measure for grassland, designed to promote the implementation of environmentally friendly agricultural practices by a farmer, an annual payment under a five-year commitment

2007 AEM National-B Increase the diversity of crop rotations, designed to promote the implementation of environmentally friendly agricultural practices by a farmer, an annual payment under a five-year commitment

2007 AEM Territorial-Cover Measures to promote land cover, annual payment under a five year contract

2007 AEM Territorial-FERTI Limiting the total fertilizer and mineral nitrogen, designed to promote the implementation of environmentally friendly agricultural practices by a farmer, an annual payment under a five-year commitment

2007 AEM Territorial-Milieu Delayed Harvests of lavenders and maintenance of salines, an annual payment under a five-year commitment

2007 AEM Territorial-Open Opening (abandoned) areas by hand or mechanical removal of plants, or by controlled burning), within the voluntary framework of environmentally friendly agricultural practices by a farmer for an annual fee within a five-year commitment

2007 AEM Territorial-Pesticides Avoidance or reduction of plant treatment, establishment of biological pest control, mulching on vegetable crops and diversity of crop rotations in vegetable crops, based on an annual payment under a five-year commitment

2007 AEM Territorial-Socle Management of grasslands (in conjunction with National MAE-A-PHAE2), annual payment under a five year contract

2003 Sustainable Agriculture Agreement Voluntary contract for farmers agreeing to implement agri-environmental measures for a period of five years

2000 Territorial Agreement for Agricultural Exploitation Voluntary and contractual commitment of farmers agreeing to implement agri-environment measures for a period of five years

1970 NHPFMA (National Handicap Payments to Farmers in Mountain Areas) and PFAHMA (Payments to Farmers in Areas with Handicap other than Mountain Areas)

Measures to maintain extensive farming in areas affected by natural handicaps (LFA) (low soil productivity, difficult climatic conditions ...)


8.1.27 GR - Greece


Greece mm 2005 Anti compaction No heavy machinery should be used on flooded or snowed soils.

2005 Crop rotation Farmers are encouraged to cultivate leguminous crops periodically

2005 Manure application limit Animal manure applied on soil should be limited to 170 kg/ha/year

2005 Retain terrace, fences and walls at the edge of the fields

If structures like terrace, fences and walls are present at the field, the farmer is obliged to retain them and maintain them.

2005 Soil protection on slope fields Fields with a slope of more than 10% are ploughed parallel to the contours, green cover is maintained in winter, terraces are maintained

2005 Stocking density in pastures Maximum 3 and minimum 0.2 animal units per hectare in pasture land are allowed.

2005 Stubble management Farmers have to incorporate stubble into the ground and do not burn it.

vibm 2005 Soil retention structures (terraces, walls,etc) creation and maintenance

Farmers get support to build or rebuild terraces, walls etc, on the boundaries of sloppy fields in order to retain soil

2004 Extensification of animal farming Reduce stocking density in pastures

2000 Organic farming Organic farming for crops and animals

Kentriki Ellada mm 1997 Banning of burning of plant residues, application of crop rotation scheme, set aside, measures against forest fires and the resulting consequences, pasture land can be ploughed after authorization, preservation of terraces

Farmers are obliged to apply decreased quantities of inorganic fertilizers, also to protect the water resources from overexploitation


8.1.28 HU - Hungary


Hungary mm 2008 Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC)

These 8 prescriptions comply with the relevant regulations of the EU legislation. The measures contain prescriptions in connection with soil conservation, soil erosion, crop rotation, soil organic matter, soil structure, and minimum level of maintenance.

2000 Law XXXV of 2000 on plant protection

1994 Law LV of 1994 on the cultivated soils. In the Section ‘Aim of soil protection” it is emphasized that the shrinking of cultivated land acreage should be slowed down. There is a need to safeguard the quality of cropland. Also the law aims at the protection against erosion, water logging, aridity, salinization, acidification, which protection is expected to be performed by the land user itself. In the Section ‘Tasks of the state” it is listed that registry, monitoring, legislation, strategy, research as well as creating an administrative authority are the tasks of the state. In the Section ‘Obligations of the land user” it is listed that such obligations include protection against erosion, acidification, salinization and pollution. The use of certificated amendments is also an obligation of the land user. There is a further Section ‘Obligations related to land management”. In the Section ‘Land protection authority and its tasks” it is listed that the land protection authority controls soil protection, permits special use of land, provides information on soils as well as imposes fines for illegal actions related to soils. There is a Section ‘Soil protection fine”, in which it is written that the sum of the fine for each hectare can reach between 850 and 18300 times wheat price for kg depending on the illegal action. The fines paid all go to the so called ‘Soil Protection Fund”.

vibm 2008 Agri-environmental Measures The main targets of action: to support the sustainable development of rural areas, to preserve and improve environmental conditions, to reduce load on environment from agricultural sources, to offer environmental protection services, and to promote agricultural practice based upon the sustainable use of natural resources.

2000 Natura 2000 Hungary


8.1.29 IE - Ireland


Ireland mm 1998 Commonage Framework Plan The plan aims at controlling the stocking density on commonages and prevent overgrazing

1991 Nitrates Directive The Nitrates Directive concerns the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources has the objective of reducing water pollution caused or induced by nitrates from agricultural sources.

vibm 1994 Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (REPS) REPS are the Rural Environment Protection Scheme. They reward farmers for farming in an environmentally friendly way.


8.1.30 IT - Italy


Italy mm 2007 Crop rotation The monosuccession of the same cereal for more than five years is prohibited. This standard refers to some specific cereals.

2005 Maintenance of existing terraces Farmers are requested to not eliminate existing terraces; to not level the land without authorization; to maintain terraces in good condition.

2005 Maintenance of olive groves in good vegetative condition

Farmers are requested to not grub up olive trees, to prune olive trees at least every 5 years, or more frequently; to remove multiyear offshoots, brambles and weed.

2005 Prohibition to burn stubble Burning of stubble and crop residues is forbidden in arable crops, grassland (natural or sowed) and pastures.

2005 Protection of permanent pasture Permanent pasture must be correctly managed. It is forbidden to reduce the permanent pasture area; to convert it into different land use on Natura 2000 sites; to tillage.

2000 Maintenance of an efficient surface water drainage system

Maintain an efficient water drainage system and to clean existing water channels, outfalls ditches and drains, by removing natural vegetation, ground and sediments. ‘Baulatura’ (traditional convexing shaping of land), if existing, must be maintained.

2000 Maintenance of green cover on lands no longer in agricultural use

In areas no longer in agricultural use farmers are requested: 1) to establish a green cover throughout the year; 2) to mow grass, or to carry out any other equivalent operation, at least once a year.

2000 Temporary channelling of surface water on sloping ground

Farmers are asked to insert temporary drainage furrows (after the sowing) on sloping land with clear erosion phenomena (that is widespread presence of rills).

Piemonte mm 2007 Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) as implemented in relation to Cross Compliance (CC)

These rules encourage the adoption of appropriate practices to protect soils against erosion, maintain levels of organic matter, alternating agricultural crops and to maintain soil structure.

vibm 2007 Measure 122 Improving the economic value of forests

Improving and broadening the economic value of forests by increasing diversification of production and enhancing market opportunities in sectors such as that for renewable energy, while maintaining the sustainable management and the multifunctional role of forests

2002 Measure 214 Agri-environment payments-action 214.3 increase of organic carbon in the soil

This measure sets incentives for farmers to take measures to increase soil organic matter and reduce the use of mineral fertilizers

2000 Measure 226 Restoring forestry potential and introducing prevention actions

Restore forestry potential in forests damaged by natural disasters and fire and to introduce preventive actions, creation and maintaining forests fire breaks, establishment of protective infrastructures, landslide settlement

1995 Measure 214 Agri-environment payments-action 214.2 organic farming

Use of means of production permitted by the organic production method

1992 Measure 221 First afforestation of agricultural land Contribute towards an improvement in forest resources; Support for the afforestation of agricultural land; Support will cover establishments costs, an annual premium contributes to cover maintenance costs and a further annual premium contributes to cover income losses resulting from afforestation.



1991 Measure 211 Natural handicap payments to farmers in mountain areas

Farmers in mountainous regions are entitled to compensatory payments through less favoured areas (LFAs) to ensure that they can continue sustainable agricultural practice with attention to environmental requirements.

Liguria mm 2006 Action program to 91/676/CE Nitrates Directive Action program in respect to the 91/676/CE Nitrates Directive and National D. Lgs 152/2006 about water protection.

2006 Defence of the structure of soils through efficiency of the water drainage system network and use suitable farm machinery

Maintain an efficient water drainage system, clean water channels, outfalls, ditches and drains, by removing natural vegetation and sediments.

2006 Maintenance of olive groves It is not allowed to remove olive trees, and farmers are propelled to prune the olive trees.

vibm 2007 Agro-environmental payments Payments to promoting a sustainable development of rural areas through the application of agricultural production methods compatible with environment and biodiversity.

Bolzano mm 2007 Crop rotation The monosuccession of the same cereal for more than five years is prohibited. This standard refers to some specific cereals

2005 Maintenance of existing terraces Farmers are requested to not eliminate existing terraces; not to level the land without authorization; to maintain terraces in good condition.

2005 Prohibition to burn stubble Stubble and crop residues burning is forbidden in arable land, grassland (natural or sowed) and pastures

2005 Protection of permanent pasture Permanent pasture must be correctly managed. It is forbidden to reduce the permanent pasture area and to convert it into different land on Natura 2000 sites and to till these sites.


Maintain an efficient water drainage system and clean existing water channels, outfall ditches and drains, by removing natural vegetation, ground and sediments.

2000 Maintenance of green cover on lands no longer in agricultural use

In areas no longer in agricultural use, farmers are requested to establish a green cover throughout the year and to mow grass, or to carry out any other equivalent operation, at least once a year.


Farmers are asked to create temporary drainage furrows (after the sowing) on sloping land with visible erosion phenomena (that is widespread presence of rills)

vibm 1994 Agri-environmental payments - forage cultures Farmers are requested to protect water by not using mineral fertilizers and herbicides

1994 Agri- environmental payments - organic farming Farmers are requested to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture by avoiding the use of herbicides, pesticides and using only organic fertilizers; maintenance of biodiversity

1994 Agri- environmental payments - viticulture Farmers are requested to maintain soil fertility, to use only certain pesticides; use of herbicides only on strips

Marche mm 2006 Action programme to 91/676/CE Nitrates Directive It is an action programme respect 91/676/CE Nitrates Directive and National D.Lgs 152/2006 about water protection.

2005 Crop rotation The monosuccession of the same cereal for more than five years is prohibited.

2005 Defence of the structure of soils through efficiency of the water drainage system network and use suitable farm machinery

Maintain an efficient water drainage system, clean water channels, outfalls, ditches and drains, by removing natural vegetation and sediments.

2005 Maintenance of distinctive features of landscape Farmers are requested to not eliminate existing terraces and maintain these terraces in good conditions.



2005 Maintenance of olive groves It is not allowed to remove olive trees, and farmers are propelled to prune the olive trees.

2005 Management of lands no longer in agricultural use Maintenance green cover, natural or artificial, during all year and implement agronomic practices to protect the state of fertility, wildlife and prevent fires.

2005 Prohibition to burn stubble It is prohibited to burn stubble and crop residues in arable land, grassland and pasture.

2005 Protection of stable pasture It in prohibited to reduce the stable pasture area.


Temporary drainage on sloping land with clear erosion phenomena. The drainage are one every 80 m distance, and 5 m of green strips are one every 60 m distance.

vibm 2008 Agro-environmental payments Promoting a sustainable development of rural areas and encouraging farmers to serve civil society, through the application of agricultural production methods compatible with the environment and natural resources protection (soil and biodiversity)

2008 Support for non-productive investments These measures contribute to the protection and improvement of marches and the rural landscape, reducing the risk of erosion and disruption. They also lead to the improvement and enhancement of ecosystems with particular reference in the areas Natura 2000.

2008 Agricultural Consulting Service This measure is a support to complementary actions to improve the overall farm and forestry sector, and in particular to improve the competitiveness of enterprises, environmental management of the territory (soils protection), and diversification of economic activities of companies.

Lazio mm 2008 Appropriate machinery use Land tillage operations must only be done in appropriate soil humidity conditions, so that soil structure should not be altered due to machinery transit.

2008 Standards for crop rotations In order to maintain soil organic matter levels, it is convenient to favour crop rotation on farm lands. Therefore, the repeated cultivation of the same cereal (i.e. ‘monoculture”) on a particular land parcel shall not last more than five years. The definition of cereal includes the following crops: wheat, durum wheat, barley, rye, oats, triticale, spelt, millet, Canary Grass, maize, sorghum.

2005 Arable stubble management Stubble burning is forbidden in arable crops, grassland and pastures. In arable land, a derogation is recognized on rice crops and whenever stubble burning is prescribed by the Phytosanitary Service due to exceptional phytosanitary emergencies

2005 Maintenance of land canals and draining network Farmers must keep canals and sites for rainfall collection clean from undesired vegetation and structures. The elimination of canals is forbidden, except in case of field network re-designing, due to extensification/ intensification of crop systems. In such cases, anyway, a new draining network is to be put in place too.

2005 Minimum livestock stocking rates or/and appropriate regimes

General obligation on permanent pasture effectively utilized through grazing to keep livestock in a range of livestock density between 0.2 and 4 LU/hectare

2005 Minimum site-specific land management The norm encourages an annual realization of furrows for the collection of runoff water from sloping cultivated land to limit the damage rainwater may cause to the soil surface. These furrows are intended to be deeper than the normal ploughing depth. Alternatively, wherever soil characteristics may hamper the execution of the abovementioned furrows, because of instability problems for machinery operators, farmers should prevent soil erosion by leaving untilled ground streaks transversal to the maximum slope direction.

2005 Minimum soil cover Maintenance of soil coverage in autumn and winter, in set-aside and retired land (regulation 4.2).



2005 Protection of permanent pasture The total farm surface of Permanent pastures must not be reduced; No tillage operations are admitted on pastures apart from those aiming at the periodic renewal of grazing vegetation and the draining network maintenance.

2005 Retain terraces Terraces must not be eliminated. Relevant soil-levelling operations must undergo an authorization.

Campania vibm 2007 Agri-environmental payments Financings for the introduction or the continuation of employment, supporting methods for compatible agricultural cultivation with environmental orientation

2007 First afforestation of agricultural land Afforestation of agricultural areas (except pastures) in order to prevent and to mitigate soil erosion and landslides.

2007 Reconstitution of damaged forests and introduction of preventions

Rebuilding of the forest ecosystems after damages from natural disasters and fires, and actions of prevention and protection from woodland fires comprise the active fight.

2007 Support for non-productive investments in agriculture Support of non-productive investments in agriculture

2007 Support for non-productive investments in forestry Preserve the forest ecosystems, protect the territory, favour high quality ecosystems, improve degraded ecosystems and guarantee the touristic quality of forest areas.

iam_pi 2006 Regional Advisory Programme on Irrigation Rationalize the use of irrigation water through advising services, via remote sensing and new communication technologies (GSM)

2004 Action Programme for vulnerable zones caused by nitrates from agricultural sources

This measure affects a group of different agronomic techniques, and particularly that of the nitrogenous fertilization and the agronomic use of the effluents of zootechnical breeding. Than, according to the environmental conditions and agricultural premises, it is possible to mitigate the risk of percolation of nitrates in superficial and deep waters.

2000 Regional Advisory Programme on fertilization Rationalize the use of fertilizers through advisory services and appropriate technical norms.

1996 Programme of Forest Arrangement Conservation, improvement and widening of the regional woodland patrimony, the increase of wood production, the defence of the ground and the hydraulic engineer-forest systems, the prevention and the defence of forest fires, the conservation and the improvement of the mountain pastures.

1993 Regional Advisory Programme on Integrated Pesticide Management

The aim is to rationalize the use of pesticides through advisory services and appropriate technical norms.

mm 2007 Crop rotation The monosuccession of the same crops for more than five years is prohibited. This standard refers to specific crops.


Maintain an efficient water drainage system and to clean existing water channels, outfalls ditches and drains, by removing natural vegetation, ground and sediments.

2005 Maintenance of existing terraces Farmers are requested not to eliminate existing terraces, not to level the land without authorization and to maintain terraces in good condition.

2005 Maintenance of olive groves in good vegetative Farmers are requested to not group up olive trees, to prune olive trees at least every 3 years, or more frequently; to remove multiyear offshoots, brambles and weed.

2005 Maintenance of plant cover Maintenance of plant covers on land that is out of agricultural use. In areas that are no longer in agricultural use farmers are requested: 1) to establish a green cover throughout the year; 2) to mow grass or to carry out any other equivalent operation, at least once a year.



2005 Prohibition to burn stubble Burning of stubble and crop residues is forbidden in arable crops, grassland (natural or sowed) and pastures.

2005 Protection of permanent pasture Permanent pasture must be correctly managed. It is forbidden to reduce the permanent pasture area; to convert it into different land use on Natura 2000 sites; tillage is prohibited.


Farmers are asked to insert temporary drainage systems (after the sowing) on sloping land with clear erosion phenomena (if there is the widespread presence of rills).

vibm 2007 Increase of organic matter Farmers adopt techniques addressed to the increase of organic matter.

2007 Reduction of the soil erosion In the zones with high risk of soil erosion (map of the risk of soil erosion - Calabria), the farmers adopt techniques to reduce the run-off.

2007 Soil grassing of arboreal crops Farmers adopt and maintain the soil grassing of arboreal crops

Sardinia mm 2007 Ministerial Act. Regional Government Act. Decree of the Regional Government Responsible for Agriculture.

Regional rules for implementing Cross Compliance Regulation (both Statutory Management Requirements and Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions.

vibm 2008 Rural Development Plan 2007-2013. Measure 214 (Agri-environmental Payments). Action 2 (Soil Protection).

Agro-environmental payments to farmers who comply with some measures for 6 years


8.1.31 LT - Lithuania



+Lithuania mm 2005 Arable stubble management On arable land, remnants of plants and stubble must be ploughed into the soil or used for the production of fertilizers

2005 GAEC 1: minimum soil cover GAEC Arable land shall be planted with agricultural plants or it shall be left as green or black fallow. Black fallow shall be cultivated periodically in order to free it from weeds and to improve the quality of the soil.

vibm 2007 Conversion of arable land into permanent pasture (meadow)

This measure is designed to reduce soil erosion and the volumes of nitrogen and phosphorus reaching water bodies at risk.

2007 Rural Development Programme Lithuania Within the range of the Rural Development Programme For Lithuania 2007-2013 many measures considering agricultural soil protection are considered


8.1.32 LU - Luxembourg


Luxembourg mm 2005 Avoiding soil erosion 1. Avoiding gully erosion 2. Interdiction of ploughing permanent grassland if slope > 12% and length > 50 m 3. maintaining existing terraces holding back the soil erosion

2005 Preservation of organic matter in soil and the soil structure

If the fertilising unit/ha < 0,75 and if arable land > 50% of agricultural surface than a crop rotation of 3 different cultures or an organic balance > -75kg Corg/ha/year or a minimum level of organic soil matter is obligatory depending on the soil type.

vibm 2008 Improvement of soils 1. Reconstruction of the potential of production after land consolidation 2. Under silage 3. Drainage

2008 Protection of forest soil against collapse and erosion Avoiding collapse and erosion of forest soil by encouraging the moving out of timber by horse

2002 Agri- environmental measure: incentive for barrier-strips

Farmers sowing permanent, 3-10m wide grass strips on slopes in arable fields, having a barrier function.

2002 Agri- environmental measure: incentive for catch-crops

Farmers grow catch crops before spring-crops, and maintain the cover over wintertime

2002 Agri- environmental measure: incentive for low-tillage Farmers sow main crops without ploughing, by direct-drilling or low-tillage

2000 Prevention of soil erosion in vineyards Soil covering with straw or organic material or extensive tillage or grass vegetation between the vine rows is supported.

iam_pi 1995 Agricultural advice projects in water protection areas Agricultural advice projects including fertilisation plans, catch crops, crop rotations, minimum tillage, pesticides in water protection area , in cooperation with waterworks


8.1.33 LV - Latvia


Latvia mm 2004 Appropriate machinery use Appropriate agricultural machinery is used for cultivation and growing of crops on agricultural land, i.e. comply with terms for sowing and maintain of fertilization, restriction of weeds and other plant protection activities on agricultural land.

2004 Arable stubble management Plants or plant and stubble remains are worked into soil to maintain fertility in agricultural land.


Farmers have to maintain drainage systems on farmland therefore ensuring regulation of soil moisture regime except in areas that are designated as especially environmentally sensitive areas.

vibm 2004 Measures of the Rural Development Plan Voluntary commitments to manage the declared area in line with the aid eligibility criteria


8.1.34 MT - Malta


Malta mm 2005 Appropriate machinery use Unnecessary trampling on soil with heavy machinery should be avoided at all times. It is forbidden to enter into the field unnecessarily with a vehicle, and to use any part of the field as a parking space for vehicles and machinery.

2005 Appropriate machinery use It is prohibited to use machinery for normal agronomic purposes when the soil is water-saturated or flooded to avoid compaction and deterioration of soil structure.

2005 Arable stubble management It is forbidden to burn stubble or vegetation residues directly on the soil, except by orders of the national plant health authority. Following such cases, farmers shall adopt corrective actions, including green manuring or application of organic material prior to the establishment of the following crop. In cases where harvested vegetable residues are collected in a heap and need to be destroyed for the prevention of transmissible plant diseases, this should be done in a limited area of the field, not exceeding 10m2. Appropriate stubble management, including ploughing and incorporation of residues, should be practiced where possible and where agronomic conditions permit, in order to increase soil organic matter.


On parcels having a slope greater than 10%, ploughing, cultivation and planting should be carried out across the direction of the slope. There should be no evidence of sheet, rill or erosion gullies on site.

2005 Retain terraces Load-bearing rubble walls that serve to retain soil on terraced land should be maintained in a good state. Any breaches occurring as a result of soil saturation following storms should be repaired in order to prevent further soil loss.

2005 Standards for crop rotations where applicable On irrigated land, crop rotation should be practised regularly, and crops belonging to the same botanical family should not be grown successively on the same parcel of land. Preferably, crops belonging to the same soil humus-depleting category should not be grown for more than three years successively on the same parcel and have to be put into rotation with at least one year of the soil-improving crops or with at least one year of set-aside.

vibm 2008 Axis 2 Less Favoured Area Measure To ensure continued farming of areas that is naturally disadvantaged as a result of poor climate conditions and low soil productivity.

2008 Axis 3 Conservation and upgrading of rural heritage Improving quality of rural areas

2008 Conservation of endangered breeds Genetic conservation of endemic species



2008 Conservation of rural structures Protection plus added flora an fauna habitat

2008 Modernization of Agricultural Holdings Provision of on farm investments

2008 Support for conservation of genetic resources Consolidating conservation of Maltese genetic pool

2008 Support for low input farming Reduction of plant protection products

2008 Support for organic farming Promoting organic production

2008 Support for providing a healthy forage area for bees Supporting biodiversity and increasing environmental awareness

2008 Support for the establishment and maintenance of conservation buffer strips

Creation of conservation buffer zones

2008 Support for the use of environmentally friendly plant protection products in vineyards

Less chemical inputs in vineyards

2008 Support for traditional crop rotation Consolidation of cultivation of sulla (Hedysarum coronarium) legume crop

2008 Support to suppress herbicides in vineyards and orchards

Prohibition of herbicides in specified areas


8.1.35 NL - Netherlands


Nederland mm 2005 Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) - Cross compliance

Part of the GAEC is related to soil. There are specific rules related to soil for: soil protection related to groundwater, using fertilizers & manure, erosion of the soil, structure of the soil and organic matter

vibm 2008 SPADE (Stimulation program for Agro biodiversity and sustainable management of the soil in agriculture)

SPADE aims to further improve sustainable use of the soil and agro biodiversity by gathering, sharing and creating new knowledge among farmers. The program is voluntary.


8.1.36 PL - Poland


Poland mm 1995 Act of the 3rd February 1995 for protection of agricultural and forestry soils (land) and appropriate Regulations

This act regulates all aspects related to fees paid if high quality land is converted into non- agricultural non-forestry function, also introduces obligations for reclamation of degraded soils and provides protection for organic soils.

vibm 2008 Measure ‘Participation of farmers in food quality schemes’ within the frame of RDP 2007-2013, in particular under ‘Integrated production (IP)’ scheme.

Integrated production (IP) is a developing pro-environmental management system which takes into account the newest achievement of science and agricultural technology and under which food is produced.

2004 Measure 1.1 ‘Investments in agricultural holdings” under SOP ‘Restructuring and modernization of food sector and rural development” and ‘Modernisation of agricultural holdings’ under the Axis 1 of RDP 2007-2013

Within the frame of above mentioned measures where is a possibility to equip agricultural holdings with machines serving to conservation tillage and no tillage performance (direct drilling).

iam_pi 2004 Agri-environmental plan Agri-environmental plan is a mandatory document for every single agricultural producer who applies for payments under the Measure 4 ‘Support for agri-environment and animal welfare’ within the frame of the Rural Development Plan (2004-2006) and under each package of the Agri-environmental programme (Agri-environmental payments) within the frame of Rural Development Programme (2007-2013).


8.1.37 PT - Portugal


Portugal mm 2008 Crop rotation Standard: ‘Crop rotation” - Parcels with spring-summer temporary crops, except rice fields, should have between 15 November and 1 March a catch crop of a different group or, alternatively, a spontaneous green cover. Catch crops allowed are autumn-winter arable crops, autumn -winter temporary forage crops and autumn-winter outdoor vegetable crops.

2008 Terrace plots Standard: ‘Terrace plots” - Terrace plots should have green cover on the slope between 15 November and 1 March. Control of this green cover may be done without ploughing outside this period.

2005 Mechanical equipment - Control of woody spontaneous vegetation

Standard: ‘Control of woody spontaneous vegetation” - In parcels with IQFP equal or above 4, vegetation control can only be done without ploughing, except in terrace plots and in areas integrated in flood plains.

2005 Minimum maintenance level - Crop use in parcels with IQFP 4

Standard: ‘Crop use in parcels with IQFP 4” - In parcels with IQFP 4, except in terrace plots and in areas integrated in flood plains, no temporary crops are allowed, and the plantation of new permanent crops or pastures is only allowed in situations considered as technically adequate by the regional services of the Ministry of Agriculture (DRAP).The IQFP (plot physiographic qualification index) is an indicator that provides the relationship between the plot morphology and the risk of erosion. It ranges from 1 to 5 that are the riskiest. It is included in the P1 model of the Agricultural Plot Identification System.

2005 Minimum maintenance level - Crop use in parcels with IQFP 5

Standard: ‘Crop use in parcels with IQFP 5” - In parcels with IQFP 5, except in terrace plots and in areas integrated in flood plains, no temporary crops or the plantation of new permanent pastures are allowed. The improvement of natural permanent pastures is allowed, but without soil tillage; the plantation of new permanent crops is only allowed in situations considered as technically adequate by the regional services of the Ministry of Agriculture (DRAP). The IQFP (plot physiographic qualification index) is an indicator that provides the relationship between the plot morphology and the risk of erosion. It ranges from 1 to 5 that are the riskiest. It is included in the P1 model of the Agricultural Plot Identification System.

2005 Parcel Cover Agricultural area and forest area with under planted crops should have a green cover, either planted or spontaneous, between 15 November and 1 March, except during soil preparation work for planting new crops. The following parcels are not covered by the minimum cover standard: a) parcels with IQFP (physiographic index) equal or below 2 with permanent crops; b) areas with protected crops. Without prejudice to provisions in standards for ‘crop use in parcels with IQFP 4” and ‘crop use in parcels with IQFP 5”, parcels with IQFP equal or above 3 with permanent crops should have green cover in the inter-row area from 15 November to 1 March.

vibm 2007 Changes in agricultural production methods This measure aims to support the sustainable development of rural areas, by encouraging farmers to voluntarily adopt specific production methods, favouring economic activities compatible with the preservation of natural resources (organic farming, integrated farming), stimulated by agri-environment payments.

2007 No tillage on Territorial Integrated Interventions (Natura sites)

Use of no tillage practise for cultivation of annual crops on areas of nature conservation - Natura sites, viewing best management of natural resources, compatible with biodiversity values.


8.1.38 RO - Romania


Romania mm 2008 Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions Mandatory measures aiming at soil conservation according to GAEC standards: minimum soil cover, minimum land management reflecting site specific conditions, retain terraces.

vibm 2008 Agri- environment package Green Cover Crops Provides financial compensation for setting up green cover crops on arable land during winter time.

2008 Implementation of the Local Development Strategies Measure 41 aims at combining the three objectives of the three axes of EAFRD, namely, competitiveness, improving the environment and quality of life / diversification

2008 Improving and developing the infrastructure related to the development and adaptation of agriculture and forestry

Adapting agricultural and forestry infrastructure to the new property structure, resulting after the property restitution process in order to increase agricultural and forestry sector competitiveness.

2008 Less Favoured Area Schemes Provides financial compensation for continuation of agricultural activities in less favoured areas/ Provides financial compensation for setting up green cover crops on arable land during winter time.

2008 Modernisation of agricultural holdings Increasing the competitiveness in the agricultural holdings through a better use of human resources and production factors

2008 Providing farm advisory and extension services Improving the competitiveness of the agricultural sector by ameliorating the sustainable management of agricultural holdings practiced by farmers that will lead to a better performance.

2008 Vocational training, information actions and diffusion of knowledge

To improve competitiveness in agricultural, forestry and food sectors as well as the sustainable use of agricultural land and environment protection by training, information and diffusion of innovative knowledge activities for adults who are active in the specified areas.


8.1.39 SE - Sweden


Sweden mm 2005 Cultivation requirements - soil erosion Requirements for farmers regarding cover crops

2005 Cultivation requirements - soil organic matter Rules for soil coverage

2005 Cultivation requirements - soil organic matter Rules for cultivation of stubble

vibm 2007 Environment protection measures This sub-measure is primarily intended to contribute to achievement of the national environmental quality objectives A Non-Toxic Environment and Zero Eutriphication.

2007 Extensive ley management for a better environment and an open landscape

The sub-measure is divided in two parts: − Part A is eligible in forest-dominated areas with the objective of enhancing biodiversity. − Part B is eligible in areas in the southern part of Sweden with an intensive agricultural production. The objective of part B is to reduce nutrient losses.

2007 Modernisation of agricultural holdings ; planting of energy crops

Investment support for the establishment of permanent energy crops for energy purposes on farmland

2007 Organic farming Support for organic farming

2007 Reduced nutrient leaching from arable land Support scheme to reduce nutrient losses from arable land

iam_pi 2001 Focus on Nutrients Project to reduce losses of nutrients to air and water from livestock and crop production


8.1.40 SK - Slovakia


Slovakia mm 2007 Application of the suitable machinery Maintain soil structure using suitable measures.

2007 Conversation of landscape elements Not remove landscape elements as alleys, windbreaks and solitary trees

2007 Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions and Statuary management requirements

Slovak Republic applies SAPS and GAECs from 2004, the full Cross compliance will be enforced from 2009 (three years transition period with sequential implementation 2009-2011)

2007 Maintenance of the field with the stubble It is prohibited to burn out harvest fields and to burn plant remainders after harvest of grain, legume and oily crops.

2007 Minimum breeding intensity and/or suitable regimes Maintain a minimum load of 0.2 livestock unit (LU) of polygastric animals per hectare of permanent grassland (TTP) or to avoid mulching the declared TTP areas. Minimum load shall increase by 0.05 LU/hectare in each year following year 2007. Maintain all grasslands according to altitude (meters above see level) by cutting or grazing according to the period. One cutting or mulching* per grazing cycle to 0 – 400m 15.6. 15.5. 401 – 600m 1.7. 25.5. 601 – 800m 15.7 10.6. Over 800m 25.7. 20.6. *when conditions of minimum loading are executed. Remove the cut matter from grass fields within 14 days following the cutting; not applicable if condition specified in the soil structure section applies.

2007 Minimum soil cover Provide for arable land minimal green soil cover (40%) with winter crops or perennial feed crop or intercrop or stubble from 15.10 to 1.3 on parcels with the slope 12%.

2007 Minimum soil maintenance reflecting the specific local conditions

Use suitable measures to prevent arable land from gully erosion with erosion gullies exceeding 20 cm.

2007 Potential standard crop rotation Not to cultivate the identical root crop on the some place two years consecutive.

2007 Protection of permanent pasture land To exclude the conversion of permanent grassland to arable land unless an exception to the special rule is allowed by the authorities

2007 Retain terraces Liquidation of existing terraces in vineyards is forbidden

2007 To avoid to infiltration of unwanted vegetation on agricultural land

Remove self-sown trees, bushes and invading types of plants and stringy weed. Permanently maintain arable land areas not used for crop production by methods preventing from weed seeding.

vibm 2007 Agri-environmental payments To implement agricultural production methods compatible with the protection and improvement of environment, country, natural resources exceeding the framework of relevant mandatory standards

2007 First afforestation of agricultural land To strengthen ecological stability of the landscape and contribute to the improvement of the environment and biodiversity within utilisation of rural resources. To support an afforestation of arable land by mixed woody species to ensure the stability


Region Category Year Policy/ Measure Description and protection of territories damaged by water erosion, landslides and floods.

2007 Implementing of cooperation projects To support the cooperation, innovation, necessary skills, exchange and transfer of experience with the implementation of the Leader approach.

2007 Implementing integrated local development strategies Improving the quality of life in rural areas and improvement of economic opportunities and social conditions of the rural population

2007 natural handicap payments in mountain areas and Payments in other areas with handicaps

To provide a sustainable use of agricultural land in less favoured areas by preserving and supporting sustainable farming systems respecting environmental protection and the character of the countryside;

2007 Modernization of agricultural holdings To improve the competitiveness of agricultural subjects by a better use of production factors and the application of new technology and innovation

2007 Natura 2000 payments and payments linked lo Directive 2000/60/Ec

To help farmers in the process of solving the specific disadvantages resulting from implementation of the Directives of the NATURA 2000 network (5th level of protection) and the Water Framework Directive on water policy through sustainable use of agricultural land with high nature value areas; protection and improvement of water sources.

2007 Running the local action group Creating and strengthening capacities for the implementation of the Leader approach. This objective shall be accomplished in particular through: creating preconditions for the effective implementation of the strategies; developing skills in the field of local management.

2007 Rural Development Plan Slovak Republic 2007 -2013 RDP for 2007 - 2013 contains all four Axis

2007 Use of advisory services To allow agricultural and forestry enterprises to improve management of their enterprises in the environmental sense of the word

2007 Vocational training and information actions To broaden the scope of training and information activities and to expand knowledge for all workers in agriculture, the food industry and forestry. This objective shall be accomplished in particular through: creating conditions for achieving the greatest returns and added value in the scope of the relevant measures of the programme; providing necessary knowledge and skills for: introducing innovations, new methods and instruments for work in agricultural, food and forest businesses in order to increase their effectiveness, introducing and disseminating information and communication technologies related to the agricultural, forestry or primary processing activities,- ensuring and increasing the quality of management, production and safety of food, , maintenance of existing and creation of new jobs, improving protection of the environment, Observing occupational safety.


8.1.41 SL - Slovenia


Slovenia mm 2007 Cultivated plants are grown during vegetation period on agricultural land

2007 Maintenance of landscape features

2007 Olive groves must be cultivated according to established technological practice

2007 Terraces are maintained wherever they mean to prevent soil erosion

2005 Agricultural land must be cultivated every year

2005 Minimum level of maintenance of agricultural land is achieved through mowing, grazing or combination of both

2005 There should be no marks of use of inappropriate mechanization on the majority of the parcel

2005 A three- year crop rotation is obligatory

2005 No visible soil erosion shall be caused by cultivation

vibm 2008 Implementation of local development strategies Implementation of the projects under the LEADER principles based on the local development potentials and reflecting the needs of the local population as well as contributing towards the improved quality of life and job creation in the countryside.

2008 Improving and developing infrastructure related to the development and adaptation of agriculture

By investing in land infrastructure the measure is aimed at accelerating the restructuring of agriculture, leading to a more efficient utilisation of production factors and thus to increased income and labour productivity; within this range lies the technical upgrading of the existing amelioration systems and the construction of new irrigation systems as well as more rational water consumption and more controlled input of nutrients.

2008 Promoting inter-territorial and transnational cooperation

Grouping rural areas with similar development opportunities and needs to jointly implement development projects exchange the knowledge and experience and thereby contribute to a more effective implementation of local development strategies.

2007 Agri-environmental Payments Measure that provides sustainable farming and rural development and whose requirements go beyond EU and national mandatory standards and good agricultural and environmental conditions.

2007 Improving the economic value of forests The support is aimed at improving the performance of the private forests management through increased utilisation of the production potential of forests, introduction of new products and production improvements in felling and extraction, increased safety at work in forests and thus contributes to increased labour productivity in forestry in accordance with the objectives of the national and EU forestry strategy.


8.1.42 UK - United Kingdom


United Kingdom/ England

mm 2006 GAEC 1: Soil Protection Review The Soil Protection Review aims to ensure good soil management. It requires Single Farm Payment claimants to conduct an assessment of their holding and identify any soils risks and problems occurring on their holding. They are also required to select and implement measures to tackle these problems.

2005 GAEC 2: Post-harvest management of land To ensure that land which has been harvested by either combine harvester or mower is left in a state in which run-off (and soil erosion) is unlikely.

2005 GAEC 3: Waterlogged soil Single Farm Payment claimants must not carry out or allow mechanical field operations, or allow (or allow the use of) a motorised vehicle on waterlogged soil, except in cases where certain set conditions apply.

2005 GAEC 4: Crop residue burning restrictions Maintain soil organic matter and prevent damage to landscape features by prohibiting the burning of crop residues.

2002 National Emission Ceilings Regulations 2002 SI No 3118

The directive aims to reduce acidification and eutrophication by regulating pollutant emission. This is relevant for large areas of upland Scotland, which are under extensive use. Member States are required to draw up national programmes to demonstrate how they are going to meet the national emissions ceilings by 2010. Member States were obliged to draw up a second updated national programme by the end of 2006. The updated UK national programme to combat acidification, eutrophication and ground-level ozone was published on 2 March 2007. It is a report on the measures being taken, and not a basis for new policy developments Important agricultural practices which are targeted are also related to agricultural ammonia emissions. http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/airquality/eu-int/eu-directives/ceiling/pdf/necd-nationalprog2007.pdf

1998 Groundwater Directive To prevent the release of substances into or onto land and then to groundwater, and can have a vital role to play in land protection.

1994 The Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 Action against carrying on an exempt activity on land where not entitled to do so i.e. the activity is not registered, it presents a risk to soil, plants or animals or other regulatory requirements are not being adhered to.

1989 The Sludge (Use in Agriculture) Regulations 1989, as amended

Audit registers held by sludge producers to ensure that the requirements of the Regulations are being met (which includes the prevention of accumulation of hazardous concentrations of heavy metals in soil).

vibm 2005 Environmental Stewardship - Entry Level Scheme Broad range of options for farmers to implement as part of their 'entry level' agri-environment agreements. Options include management of maize crops to reduce soil erosion; management of woodland edges; taking archaeological features out of cultivation; reducing depth of cultivations on archaeological features; 2m, 4m, and 6m buffer strips on cultivated land; field corner management; over-wintered stubbles; beetle banks; under sown spring cereals; & cereals for whole crop silage followed by over-wintered stubbles.

2005 Environmental Stewardship - Higher Level Scheme Upper tier of Environmental Stewardship, including options such as: arable reversion to unfertilised grassland to prevent erosion or run-off; arable reversion to grassland with low fertiliser input to present erosion or run-off; infield grass areas to prevent erosion or run-off;


Region Category Year Policy/ Measure Description preventing erosion or run-off from intensively managed improved grassland; seasonal livestock removal on grassland with no input restriction; restoration/creation of woodland; arable reversion by natural regeneration; crop establishment by direct drilling; fallow plots; unharvested, fertiliser free conservation headlands; reduced herbicide, cereal crop management preceding over-wintered stubble and a spring crop; etc.

2005 Environmental Stewardship - Organic Entry Level Scheme

Broad range of options for farmers to implement as part of their 'entry level' agri-environment agreements. Options include management of maize crops to reduce soil erosion; management of woodland edges; taking archaeological features out of cultivation; reducing depth of cultivations on archaeological features; 2m, 4m, and 6m buffer strips on cultivated land; field corner management; over-wintered stubbles; beetle banks; under sown spring cereals; & cereals for whole crop silage followed by over-wintered stubbles.

2005 Environmental Stewardship - Organic Higher Level Scheme

Upper tier (organic) of Environmental Stewardship, including options such as: arable reversion to unfertilised grassland to prevent erosion or run-off; arable reversion to grassland with low fertiliser input to present erosion or run-off; infield grass areas to prevent erosion or run-off; preventing erosion or run-off from intensively managed improved grassland; seasonal livestock removal on grassland with no input restriction; restoration/creation of woodland; arable reversion by natural regeneration; crop establishment by direct drilling; fallow plots; unharvested, fertiliser free conservation headlands; reduced herbicide, cereal crop management preceding over-wintered stubble and a spring crop; etc.

iam_pi 2008 The Defra Soil Strategy (Draft) The Draft Soil Strategy aims to ensure that measures for the protection of soil functions in respect of agricultural and forest soils are effective, targeted and proportionate, take into account future pressures including our changing climate and minimise adverse impacts on air, water, biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions; Reduce the rate of soil organic matter decline and protect habitats based on organic soils to maintain our carbon stores; establish the degree of risk from putting organic materials on soils and the consequences for human, animal and plant health and the environment, and seek to keep those risks at an acceptable level.

Northern Ireland mm 2006 The Nitrates Action Programme (NAP) Regulations (NI) 2006

Restricts the application of Nitrates to farmland

2006 The Phosphorus (Use in Agriculture) (P) Regulations (NI) 2006

Restricts the application of Phosphates to farmland

2005 GAEC 1. Soil Management Land must not be severely trampled or poached. Cultivated land must have either a crop, stubble or grass cover or is left ploughed or diced over the following winter. No cultivations should be carried out if soil is waterlogged.

vibm 2008 Northern Ireland Rural Development Programme 2007-2013: Agri-Environment Measure

Multi-annual commitments from farmers to reduce inputs, manage grazing levels, manage and enhance important habitats and protect farm waterways.

Scotland mm 2008 (Diffuse Pollution) (Scotland) Regulations 2008 These regulations consist of a number of 'General Binding Rules' which managers should comply with in order to reduce the risk of diffuse pollution. These rules include measures such as non cultivated strips alongside water courses.

2005 GAEC 11 Overgrazing Overgrazing with livestock and other species in such numbers as to adversely affect the growth should be avoided. Structure or species composition of vegetation on the land should be maintained. The only exception to this is where vegetation is normally grazed to


Region Category Year Policy/ Measure Description destruction to a significant degree (i.e. land that is to be cultivated immediately after grazing by livestock, which remove the entire crop).

2005 GAEC 12 Ploughing pastures of high environmental or archaeological value.

Any proposal to plough up pasture of high environmental or archaeological value e.g. species-rich grassland, Marsh habitats, pastoral woodland and heather moorland will require the consent of the relevant authority (e.g. SNH for land in SPAs or SACs; SGRPID for land under an agri-environment agreement; or approval under the EIA Regulations.

2005 GAEC 13 Protection of rough grazing/semi natural areas

To ensure the protection of rough grazing areas and other semi natural areas you must not undertake new drainage works, ploughing, clearing, levelling, re-seeding or cultivating unless approved under the Environmental Impact Assessment (Uncultivated Land and Semi-Natural Areas (Scotland) Regulations 2002.

2005 GAEC 1 Post Harvest Management of Land All cropped land over the following winter must, where soil conditions after harvest allow, have either a crop cover, grass cover, stubble cover ploughed surface or roughly cultivated surface. Fine seedbeds should only be created very close to sowing.

2005 GAEC 2 Wind Erosion In areas prone to wind erosion you must take steps to reduce the risk of soil loss in the spring by maintaining a crop cover, using coarse seedbeds, shelter belts, nurse crops, or take other appropriate measures that have an equivalent effect.

2005 GAEC 3 Soil Capping On sites where capping is a problem you must form a coarse seedbed or break any cap that forms to avoid erosion.

2005 GAEC 4 Erosion caused by livestock The erosion of land should be prevented. Banks of water courses, at watering points and feeding areas should be protected from overgrazing, heavy trampling or heavy poaching by livestock.

2005 GAEC 5 Maintenance of functional field drainage systems

Functional field drainage systems should be maintained, including clearing ditches, unless environmental gain can be achieved by not maintaining field drainage systems.

2005 GAEC 6 Muirburn Code The latest edition of the Muirburn Code should be followed.

2005 GAEC 7 Arable Crop Rotation Standards On arable land suitable break crops should be used in the arable rotation and the use of organic materials should be used by basing the rate of application on soil and crop needs should be optimised. Where break cops are not used a record of organic materials applied to arable land should be kept for 5 years.

2005 GAEC 8 Arable Stubble Management Livestock manures should be incorporated within two weeks after spreading on stubbles, unless in areas prone to wind erosion when incorporation may be delayed.

2005 GAEC 9 Appropriate Machinery Use If water is standing on the surface or the soil is saturated cultivations should not be carried out.

2004 Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 A duty on all public bodies to further the conservation of biodiversity.

2003 The Action Programme for Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (Scotland) Regulations 2003

Limits nitrogen fertiliser use within designated areas known as NVZs. Land protection is not an objective of these controls, but obviously land is protected if good practices are adopted (e.g. land suitability and condition, timing and rate of application etc).

vibm 2008 Soils and Water Management Programme The SWMP will assess the risks to soil and water on the farm including soil erosion, compaction, structural degradation, loss of organic matter and nutrients. Where risks to soils or to the water environment have been identified, management practices should be outlined by the farmer in his/her SWMP to protect soils and the water environment. This may include the prevention or mitigation of soil erosion or compaction, or the prevention of


Region Category Year Policy/ Measure Description water pollution by soil erosion, manures or other nutrients.

2008 Water Margins and Enhanced Riparian Buffer Zones The aim of this Option is to protect water margins from erosion and diffuse pollution, whilst encouraging the development of waterside vegetation that stabilises the banks and enhances biodiversity.

iam_pi 2005 Farm soils plan The Farm Soils Plan is a new guidance document aimed at all farmers, crofters and agricultural contractors across Scotland. It provides basic, straightforward guidance on: Recognising and rectifying poor soil conditions, targeted nutrient application, preventing soil loss and protecting water quality and protecting your soils. Some of the sections provide ideas to reduce the risk of soil erosion or protect water quality around the farm. The Farm Soils Plan can act as a guide to assess GAEC (Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition) compliance regarding soil related issues.

2002 4 Point Plan The Four Point Plan contains simple guidance on how to reduce dirty water around the farm, improve nutrient use, carry out a land risk assessment for slurry and manure and manage water margins.

Wales mm 2008 Environmental Permitting Regime Regulatory regime for controlling pollution from certain high intensity agricultural activities - pigs and poultry (e.g. aerial deposition of pollutants on soils).

2007 Environmental Permitting Regulations 2007 Regulation relating to recovery or disposal of waste (excluding householders producing household waste).

2005 GAEC A1 Soil Erosion Completion of soil management checklist to avoid erosion damage to farm soils.

2005 GAEC A2 Soil Organic Matter Protection of organic matter on farm soils

2005 GAEC A3 Soil Structure Protection of soil structure on farmland soils

2002 Nitrate Vulnerable Zones An environmental measure designed to reduce water pollution by nitrate from agricultural sources

1991 Water Resources Act Covers any agricultural activity releasing a substance into a water body

1989 The Sludge (Use in Agriculture) Regulations 1989 Applies to control of on-farm sewage sludge application

1966 Best and Most Versatile land protection policy Protection of best and most versatile agricultural land from irreversible loss to development

1966 Minerals planning policy Planning policy guidance which includes all minerals and substances in, on or under land extracted either by underground or surface working.

1953 Agricultural Land (Removal of Surface Soil) Act 1953 (c.10)

Control of removal of surface soil from agricultural land with a view to sale.

vibm 2007 The Organic Farming Scheme A scheme offering payments to farmers in Wales to aid them in converting to organic farming and maintaining their organic status

2005 Tir Cynnal Agri-environment Scheme ‘Entry level’ agri-environment scheme applying to all of Wales

1999 Tir Gofal ‘Higher level’ agri-environment scheme

iam_pi 2008 The Welsh Soils Action Plan A proposed action plan to address soil issues in Wales

2000 Fertiliser Recommendations for Agricultural and Horticultural Crops (RB209)

Recommendations for fertiliser use

1998 The Soil Code A code to avoid long term damage to soils on farm and in mineral extraction


9. References

FAO (2008), Official webpage of the Agriculture and Consumer Protection Department. http://www.fao.org/ag/ca/, consulted 29.01.08

Hannam, I. and B. Boer. 2002. Legal and Institutional Frameworks for Sustainable Soils. UICN Environmental Policy Paper No. 45. Available at http://www.iucn.org/themes/law/pdfdocuments/EPLP45EN.pdf

Morgan, R.P.C., Ed. (1981). Soil Conservation, Problems and Prospects, John Wiley and Sons, New York; and the Council of Europe, 1988, Problems of Soil Conservation, Nature and Environment Series, Strasbourg.

North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

North, D. C. (1994). Economic Performance Through Time. The American Economic Review 84 (3), 359-368.

Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ostrom, E. (2005). Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy 6(1), 65-78.

Rubio, J.L., Imeson, A.C., Bielek, P., Fullen, M.A., Pascual, J.A., Andreu, V., and Recatalá, L.A.C. (2006). Directory of European Organisations and Persons Working on Soil Protection. Bratislava:

Scheffer, F. and Schachtschabel, P. (1998). Lehrbuch der Bodenkunde, Enke, Stuttgart.

Weersink, A. (2002). Policy options to account for the environmental costs and benefits of agriculture. Canadian Journal of Plant Pathology 24(3):265-273.

Williamson, O. E. (1985). The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting. New York: Free Press


10. Annex

Annex 1. Glossary

Action arena : In an action arena, ‘… participants and an action situation interact as they are affected by exogenous variables […] and produce outcomes that in turn affect the participants and the action situation” (Ostrom 2005: 13). An action situation occurs, ‘whenever two or more individuals are faced with a set of potential actions that jointly produce outcomes…” (ibid: 32)

Transaction : The term is used in accordance with the definition provided by Williamson (1985: 1): ‘A transaction occurs when a good or service is transferred across a technologically separable interface. One stage of activity terminates and another begins’. Transactions can benefit or deteriorate the soil status (e.g., polluting soils by over-applying nitrate fertilisers, non-avoidance of erosion, or avoiding soil compaction by the use of wide tyres)

The properties of a transaction can vary with respect to e.g., the degree of rivalry, excludability, asset specificity, separability or jointness, frequency of transaction, uncertainty of its implications, complexity and heterogeneity of its associated environmental problems, legitimacy, etc. They include the bio-geophysical conditions.

Property rights : Property rights are not only physical rights with respect to a particular resource but also the cost and benefit streams associated with a resource. They are usually highly differentiated and may include access, extraction, management, exclusion, and alienation rights. For example, this may be the right of a farmer to decide whether or not to maintain soil cover.

Actor : one who plays a part, or a ‘doer”, but not ‘on the behalf of another”. Actors include farmers or groups of farmers, environmentalists, civil society actors, and regulators/policy makers at various levels of societal organisation (see list of potentially relevant soil-related actors)

Stakeholder: someone who has a ‘real” interest (or stake), ie, not just an academic interest, in the event(s) or proceedings. All stakeholders are actors but not all actors are stakeholders.

Institutions : ‘are the rules of the game in a society or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction. They are made up of formal constraints (e.g., rules, laws, and constitutions), informal constraints (e.g., norms of behaviour, conventions, and self-imposed codes of conduct), and their enforcement characteristics. In consequence, they structure incentives in human exchange, whether political, social, or economic” (North 1990: 3; North 1994: 359). Examples are the distribution of (de-facto) property rights over relevant natural resources among actors; laws; norms of behaviour; or conventions. Ostrom (1990: 51) emphasises that ‘…an institution can be defined as the set of working rules that are used to determine who is eligible to make decisions in some arena, what actions are allowed or constrained, what aggregation rules will be used, what procedures must be followed, what information must or must not be provided, and what payoffs will be assigned to individuals dependent on their actions.”

Governance structures Governance structures are the organisational solutions for making rules (institutions) effective, i.e., they are necessary for guaranteeing the rights and duties and their use in coordinating transactions (e.g., Ostrom 1990). They include hierarchies, hybrid forms, planning processes, knowledge and information systems


and networks, monitoring infrastructures, procedures for conflict resolution and distribution of costs, and incentives to promote innovation and learning. They may be public or private forms of organisation.

Driving forces behind the major soil conservation problems: ‘driving forces” indicate what is causing a certain state of soil. These forces can be divided into cultural, economic, social, technical and ecological driving forces, ranging from market conditions to climate change. They are closely linked to threats impacting on soil condition (ie inducing soil degradation)

Soil degradation : Soil degradation can be understood as ‘a natural process … […] caused by human use of soil” (Schachtschabel et al. 1998: 379). According to the EU Thematic Strategy on the protection of soils (CEC 2006), the greatest threats to soils in the Europe comprise erosion (including wind erosion and water erosion), decline in organic matter, soil contamination, soil compaction, decline in soil biodiversity, salinisation as well as floods and landslides. Agricultural activities (i.e. farming practices) are one of the main factors contributing to soil degradation (Boardman et al. 2003; Helming et al. 2006).

Soil threats are different types of soil degradation. According to the EU Thematic Strategy on the protection of soils (CEC 2006), the greatest threats to soils in the Europe comprise erosion (including wind erosion and water erosion), decline in organic matter, soil contamination, soil compaction, decline in soil biodiversity, salinisation as well as floods and landslides. This list has later been extended with acidification and desertification.

Farming/agricultural practices : Farming practices are defined as a specific way of growing agricultural crops and fodder. They comprise specific tillage types, amount of fertilizers and pesticides, machinery used, specific time spans of work steps. Agricultural activities see farming practices, but can be seen in a wider context and comprise also animal husbandry….(see list of farming practices that cause or prevent soil degradation)

Agricultural land management: (Suggestion from Wikipedia; to be verified): ‘Land management can be defined as the process of managing the use and development (in both urban and suburban settings) of land resources (in a sustainable way). Land resources are used for a variety of purposes which interact and may compete with one another; therefore, it is desirable to plan and manage all uses in an integrated manner.” For our project, land management comprises both farming practices applied and the general set-up of fields, the use of land and other related resources (e.g. irrigation systems).

Soil management (on agricultural land): usually encompasses all tillage and planting operations, cropping practices, fertiliser, lime, irrigation, herbicide, and insecticide application, and other treatments conducted on or applied to a soil for the production of plants.

Soil conservation : Soil conservation refers to all those soil management activities that help to prevent the various forms of soil degradation, or even to reverse soil degrading


effects and to improve soil quality.1 A wider definition is: The prevention, mitigation or control of soil erosion and degradation through the application to land of cultural, vegetative, structural and land management measures, either singly or in combination, which enable stability and productivity to be maintained for future generations. The global literature explains soil conservation in the context of practical approaches to field assessment and control of soil erosion . Some sources describe it as the physical application of land and water management knowledge by skilful or artful means, with the goal of protecting soil resources from exploitation, destruction, or neglect. Morgan discusses soil conservation in a strategic sense and argues that strategies for soil conservation require a thorough understanding of the processes of erosion. He asserts that the aim of soil conservation is to obtain the maximum sustained level of production from a given area of land whilst maintaining soil loss below a threshold level which, he says, theoretically permits the natural rate of soil formation to keep pace with the rate of soil erosion (Morgan 1981, cited in Hannam 2002).

Soil conservation measures : Soil conservation measures are defined in this context as measures that are either directly related to the farming practices such as reduced tillage or as measures that are addressed at a less farming practice related level (such as drainage of a field or land consolidation) with the aim to reduce the soil degradation risk … (see list of soil conservation measures).

Conservation agriculture: Conservation agriculture encompasses a set of complementary agricultural practices based on three principles (FAO):

- minimal soil disturbance (through reduced or no-tillage in order to preserve soil organic matter);

- permanent soil cover (cover crops, residues and mulches) to protect the soil and contribute to suppressing weeds;

- diversified crop rotations and associations, which promote soil micro-organisms and disrupt plant pests and diseases.

Social capital : is understood as ‘features of social organization such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (Putnam 1995: 67).

1 Thus, the success (effectiveness) of soil conservation strategies/policies, i.e., the specific incentive structures they provide for farmers and other land users, depend to a large extent on the overall set of soil management strategies/policies and the incentive structure they provide. While in this study the focus is on soil conservation measures and policies, the assessment of their performance will also have to take the role of other policies and institutions affecting soil management into account.


Annex 2. Screenshots of the online appearance of the survey

A comprehensive design was chosen for the online survey. In a welcome page (Figure 1) participants were informed on the project and instructed on how to use the website. The menue buttons Logout, Home, Mandatory Measures, Voluntariy Incentive Based Measures, Inititatives and Complementary Questions led to the corresponding forms for inserting measures, the welcome page or logout. On the left side of the page separated by a hyphen, the project logo, manual, contact information to ZALF as well as W3C Xhtml and W3C CSS validators were listed.

Figure 1: Screenshot of the ‘welcome page’ of the S oCo_PolRev survey

While the left side of page always remained the same, the right side changed corresponding to the menu buttons, for example to the complementary questions (Figure 2) inventory form. Participants were invited to insert their data via open fields, yes or no (Boolean) questions and selection lists of defined attributes. Every update of data in the forms had to saved to the database via pressing of an update, or CREATE button.


Figure 2: Screenshot of the ‘complementary question s’ page of the SoCo_PolRev survey

In the example below (Figure 3) the listing page of mandatory measures is presented. Inserted measures are listed as an overview for the contributing experts and can be processed (Show, Edit, and Delete). Listing pages existed for the three policy categories. New measures could be added within a category pressing an ‘ADD NEW Measure”- Button.

Figure 3: Screenshot of an exemplary listing of mea sures according to a category


Annex 3. Print version of the online-questionnaire

Editorial note: The online version of the questionnaire contains a series of functions not available in the print-version (e.g. obligatory fields). The policy inventory forms could be extended to a sufficient number of formularies. Participants were encouraged to fill in forms for individual measures.

Welcome Page

Thank you very much for participating in the ongoing project as an expert in soil conservation and the policy and regulatory environment.

This project will provide an EU wide review on the performance of soil protection within the agricultural and rural development policies of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union.

The overall objective of the current survey is to establish an overview on the current status of implementation and monitoring of policies addressing soil conservation issues in the EU-27.

The main policies that need to be covered are:

1. Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) specified in the Directive No.1782/2003, Annex IV and implemented through Cross Compliance (CC) (in relation to SPS or SAPS in the new member states)

2. Measures as part of the Rural Development Plans (Directive No.1698/2005, Axis 1, 2 and 4 (LEADER))

3. Any national or regional policy of significant importance.

For additional information please consult the manual (59.42 KB).

Inserting Data

Data can be inserted in different ways. Open fields demand text entries. Some questions only allow yes/no answers and for some questions there are select lists or multiple entry options.

Please do not forget to press the CREATE/ UPDATE-Bu tton to upload your data when you are submitting data, otherwise data is not being saved.

As long as the survey is online you can administer (Edit, Add, Destroy) the data you submitted.

For any question regarding the report or further questions on the survey please do not hesitate to contact the ZALF-project team.


Policy Inventory Forms

Mandatory Measure (MM)

Please add data within this category concerning: Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) as implemented in relation to Cross Compliance (CC) for Single Payment Scheme (SPS), and according to Single Area Payment Scheme (SAPS) in the new Member States as well as national and regional laws and regulations (E.g. Cross-Compliance regulations, ambient standards, emission standards, mandatory practices etc…)

1. Please insert the English name of the MM:

2. Please insert the local name of the MM:

3. Please give a short description of the MM (1 sent ence):

4. For which region (NUTS) is the MM valid? (... on which spatial level?)

Select (from region list) 5. When was the MM implemented? (Year):

6. Does the Mandatory Measure (MM) refer to the Goo d Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) standards as defined in the directive EC 1782/2003, Annex 4, 1-3?

Select: Yes/ No 6. Is this MM implemented in form of a Cross Compli ance Regulation (with direct payments SPS/SAPS)?

Select: Yes/ No 7. Which institutions, initiatives and others were involved developing the MM? (apart from EU-Institutions)

(Multiple entries possible via [ctrl] + mouse-click)

- --- - National Ministry of Agriculture - National Ministry of the Environment - Federal State Ministry of Agriculture - Federal State Ministry of the Environment - Agricultural Paying Agency, Environmental Authority - University - Research Institution - Farmer Association - Environmental Organization - NGO - Other

8. Why was the MM implemented? (1 sentence)

9. What is the main target of the MM?

Select:

- --- - Soil Conservation - Water - Air - Biodiversity - Other (not specified)

10. Which Soil Protection Problems are addressed in th e MM?


- --- - Soil Erosion (water)


- Soil Erosion (wind) - Decline in organic matter - Soil contamination (local) - Soil contamination (diffuse) - Soil compaction - Decline in soil biodiversity - Salinization - Floods and Landslide - Acidification - Offsite damages related to soil erosion

11. Which agricultural cropping or tillage practice s are affected by the MM?


- --- - Land Consolidation - Set-aside - Rearrangement in field size - Establishment of linear elements - Cultivation methods - Tillage - Fertilization - Drilling - Crop rotation - Pesticide use - Irrigation - Drainage - Livestock management - Other

13. Which agricultural long term practices/measures are affected by the MM?


- --- - Crop rotation - Strip Cropping - Use of organic soil improvers/exogenous organic material - Control of Irrigation and drainage - Change of field patterns and size - Technical constructions (ditches, terraces, retention ponds) - Livestock related measures - Other.

14. If agricultural practices addressing soil conse rvation have not been specified above, please speci fy:

14. Is the MM result oriented or measure oriented? (Example: Results oriented: meet certain measurable values, toxins, nitrates etc.; Measure oriented: No tillage, reduced tillage, one cut per year etc.)

Select: Result oriented, Measure oriented 15. Are agricultural practices specified or recomme nded by the MM?

Select: Yes/ No 16. Who is the implementation authority of the MM?

Select:

- --- - National Ministry of Agriculture - National Ministry of the Environment - Federal State Ministry of Agriculture - Federal State Ministry of the Environment - Agricultural Paying Agency


- Environmental Authority - Other

17. Who is the monitoring authority of the MM?

Select:

- --- - National Ministry of Agriculture - National Ministry of the Environment - Federal State Ministry of Agriculture - Federal State Ministry of the Environment - Agricultural Paying Agency - Environmental Authority - Other

18. What are the monitoring mechanisms of the MM?


- --- - Random field survey - Complete survey - Self reporting - Others

19. Are there (punitive) sanctions for non-complian ce in practice?

Select:

- --- - Yes, but not sufficiently effective - Yes, there are effective sanctions - No; Sanctions are not relevant

20. What is the (estimated) percentage of complianc e of the MM?

Select:

- --- - 0-50% - 50-75% - 75-90% - 90-100%

20. What are the main problems implementing the abo ve described MM concerning soil protection in your country/region? 21. Please give reference to the MM (title of docume nt, name of law)

22. and/or website/url :


Voluntary Incentive Based Measure (VIBM)

Please add data within this category concerning: Measures as part of the Rural Development Plans (Directive No.1698/2005, Axis 1 (‘Improving the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry sector”), 2 (‘Improving the environment and the countryside”) and 4 (‘LEADER”)) as well as national and regional efforts.

1. Please insert the English name of the VIBM:

2. Please insert the local name of the VIBM:

3. Please give a short description of the VIBM (1 sen tence):

4. For which region (NUTS) is the VIBM valid? (... o n which spatial level?)

Select (from region list) 5. When was the VIBM implemented? (Year)

6. Does the VIBM refer to the Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) standards as defined in the directive EC 1782/2003, Annex 4, 1-3?

Select: Yes/ No 7. Is this VIBM addressing soil conservation impleme nted in form of Less Favoured Area Payments (LFA)?

Select: Yes/ No 8. Does the VIBM addressing soil conservation includ e one or more of the following within the range of Rural Development Measures (EC 1698/2005)? (Improvin g the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry sector, Axis 1)


- --- - Training of farmers - Use of advisory services by farmers - Restoring of agricultural production potential and prevention of natural disasters - Modernisation of agricultural production systems

9. Does the VIBM concerning soil conservation includ e one or more of the following within the range of Rural Development Measures (EC 1698/2005)? (Improvin g the environment and the countryside, Axis 2)


- --- - Payments to farmers in areas with handicaps, other than mountain areas (Less Favoured Areas, LFA) - Natura 2000 payments and payments linked to Directive 2000/60/EC - Agri-environmental payments - Support for non productive investments - Afforestation - Establishment of Agroforestry systems

10. Does the VIBM concerning soil conservation inclu de one or more of the following within the range of Rural Development Measures (EC 1698/2005)? (LEADER, Ax is 4)


- --- - Area based public private partnerships - Bottom-up approach with a decision making power for local action groups - Implementation of cooperation projects - Networking of local partnerships

11. Which institutions, initiatives and others were involved developing the MM? (apart from EU-Institutions)



- --- - National Ministry of Agriculture - National Ministry of the Environment - Federal State Ministry of Agriculture - Federal State Ministry of the Environment - Agricultural Paying Agency, Environmental Authority - University - Research Institution - Farmer Association - Environmental Organization - NGO

Other 12. Why was the VIBM implemented? (1 sentence )

13. What is the main target of the VIBM?

Select:


14. Which soil protection problems are addressed in the VIBM?


- --- - Soil Erosion (water) - Soil Erosion (wind) - Decline in organic matter - Soil contamination (local) - Soil contamination (diffuse) - Soil compaction - Decline in soil biodiversity - Salinization - Floods and Landslides - Acidification - Offsite damages related to soil erosion

15. Which agricultural cropping or tillage practice s are affected by the VIBM?




16. Which agricultural long term practices/measures are affected by the VIBM?



17. If further agricultural practices concerning so il conservation related to the VIBM have not been specified above, please specify. 18. Is the VIBM result oriented or measure oriented? (Example: Result oriented: meet certain measurable values, toxins, nitrates etc.; Measure oriented: No tillage, reduced tillage, one cut per year etc.)

Select: Result oriented, Measure oriented, Other 19. Are there eligibility restrictions for particip ation in the measure? (Example: Spatial restriction: participation on VIBM considering soil erosion only in inclinated areas. Factual restriction: participation in VIBM for organic farming only for certified organic farms etc.)

Select: Yes/ No 20. Who is the implementing authority of the VIBM?

Select:


21. Who is the monitoring authority of the VIBM?

Select:


22. What are the monitoring mechanisms of the VIBM?


- --- - Random field survey - Complete survey - Self reporting - Others

23. What is the planned uptake area of the VIBM (in ha)? (if relevant, not relevant for taxes)


Select:

- --- - <100 ha - <1.000 ha - <10.000 ha - <100.000 ha - <1 Mio ha - >1 Mio ha

24. What is the actual uptake area of the VIBM? (if relevant, not relevant for taxes)

Select:


25. How many farms participate in the VIBM? (if relevant, not relevant for taxes)

Select:

- --- - <100 - <1.000 - <10.000 - <100.000 - <1 Mio - >1 Mio

26. What is the contract period of the VIBM?

Select:

- --- - <5 - <10 - <20 - no time limit

27. What is the total (estimated) budget of the VIBM [€] (including European funds)? (if relevant, not relevant for taxes)

Select:

- --- - <100.000 € - <1Mio € - <10 Mio € - <100 Mio € - <1.000 Mio € - >1.000 Mio €

28. What is the amount of compensations per ha (in €)? (if relevant, not relevant for taxes)

Select:

- ---


- <100 € - 100-300 € - 300-500 € - >500 €

29. What are the main problems implementing the abo ve described VIBM concerning soil protection in your country/region? 30. Please give reference to the VIBM (title of docum ent, name of law):




Please add data within this category concerning: Environmental farm plans, Sustainable agriculture initiatives, Good practices, Environmental workshops, Private initiatives.

1. Please insert the English name of the IAM+PI:

2. Please insert the local name of the IAM+PI:

3. Please give a short description of the IAM+PI (1 s entence):

4. For which region (NUTS) is the IAM+PI valid? (... on which spatial level?)

Select (from region list) 5. When was the IAM+PI implemented? (Year)

7. Which institutions, initiatives and others were involved developing the IAM+PI? (apart from EU-Institutions)


- --- - National Ministry of Agriculture - National Ministry o the Environment - Federal State Ministry of Agriculture - Federal State Ministry of the Environment - Agricultural Paying Agency, Environmental Authority - University - Research Institution - Farmer Association - Environmental Organization - NGO - Other

8. Why was the IAM+PI implemented? (1 sentence)

9. How was the IAM+PI implemented? (Example: Top-Down: Government offers courses; Bottom-Up: Farmer organization offers courses)

Select: Top-Down/ Bottom-Up 10. What is the main target of the IAM+PI?

Select:


11. Which soil protection problems are addressed in the IAM+PI?


- --- - Soil Erosion (water) - Soil Erosion (wind) - Decline in organic matter - Soil contamination (local) - Soil contamination (diffuse) - Soil compaction - Decline in soil biodiversity - Salinization - Floods and Landslides


- Acidification - Offsite damages related to soil erosion

12. Which agricultural cropping or tillage practice s are affected by the IAM+PI?



13. Which agricultural long term practices/measures are affected by the IAM+PI?



14. If further agricultural practices concerning so il conservation related to the IAM+PI have not been specified above, please specify: 15. What is the planned uptake area of the IAM+PI (i n ha)? (if relevant, not relevant for taxes)

Select:


16. What is the actual uptake area of the IAM+PI? (if relevant, not relevant for taxes)

Select:



17. How many farms participate in the IAM+PI? (if relevant, not relevant for taxes)

Select:

- --- - <100 - <1.000 - <10.000 - <100.000 - <1 Mio - >1 Mio

18. What is the total (estimated) budget of the IAM +PI [€] (including European funds)? (if relevant, not relevant for taxes)

Select:

- --- - <100.000 € - <1Mio € - <10 Mio € - <100 Mio € - <1.000 Mio € - >1.000 Mio €

19. What are the main problems implementing the abo ve described IAM+PI concerning soil protection in your country/region? 20. Please give reference to the IAM+PI (title of doc ument, name of law):



Complementary questions

1. From your opinion, does the legislation of your country or region address the aspects of soil conservation in a sufficient way? 2. Do you feel that the instruments of the Common A gricultural Policy (CAP) in combination with national and regional efforts lead to an effective way of so il conservation in the agricultural landscape in yo ur country or region?

Select: Yes/ No 3. Where do you feel that improvements of the CAP in struments regarding soil conservation might be needed towards the goal of sustainable land use in the agricultural landscape? 4. Did you have easy access to the information requ ired by the questionnaire?

Select: Yes/ No 5. How many hours did it take you to precisely answ er this questionnaire? (Total time). If several use rs submitted data please sum up.

Select:

- --- - <1 - 1-2 - 2-4 - 4-6 - 6-8 - >8

6. Do you consider the applied time span of four we eks for the current questionnaire on an EU wide overview on Policies and Regulatory Environment Conce rning Soil Conservation an adequate period?

Select: Yes/ No 7. Further comments and suggestions:


Annex 4. User Manual for the Questionnaire

Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) e.V.

User Manual for the Online Questionnaire within the project:

‘EU wide Review of Policies and Regulatory Environment

Concerning Soil Conservation”

Dear Madam or Sir,

Thank you very much for participating in the ongoing project as an expert in soil conservation and the policy and regulatory environment. This project will provide an EU wide review on the performance of soil protection within the agricultural and rural development policies of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union. Since this review is based on expert knowledge, each questionnaire is of particular importance for the integrity of the whole report. Data added by the experts is not expected to be supplemented.

Please print out this manual to have it at hand whe n filling out the questionnaire.

General remarks

The overall objective of the current survey is to establish an overview on the current status of implementation and monitoring of policies addressing soil conservation issues in the EU-27.


- Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) specified in the Directive No.1782/2003, Annex IV and implemented through Cross Compliance (CC) (in relation to SPS or SAPS in the new member states)

- Measures as part of the Rural Development Plans (Directive No.1698/2005, Axis 1, 2 and 4 (LEADER))

- Any national or regional policy of significant importance.

Other initiatives (Private Initiatives) are also of interest in this survey if the below mentioned soil conservation issues are addressed.

Besides a collection of these regulations and measures and their references, we kindly ask you to provide us the most information accessible. If you have to justify your time-off from your regular work a letter of the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission underlining the project’s importance can be provided upon request.

For any question regarding the report or further qu estions on the survey please do not hesitate to contact the ZALF-project team.


Methodological Background

Many environmental or agricultural policies directly or indirectly address soil conservation. Legislation or Policy instruments addressing soil conservation practices either require an adoption of a technical measure by a farmer or ask to attain a measurable conservation effect (e.g. meeting certain nitrate standards).

The relation between soil protection problems and agricultural measures is demonstrated in the chart below. Coloured fields express the impact of an agricultural measure on a defined soil protection problem.

SOIL PROTECTION PROBLEM

TECHNICAL MEASURES

Soil erosion water

Soil erosion

wind

Decline in

organic matter

Negative carbon balance

Diffuse contamination

Compaction Salinization Acidification Decrease of water retention capacity

Off-site damage

Cropping/tillage measures

Increased vegetation (intercrops, undersown crops and grass strips)

Reduced/no tillage

Contour tillage

Restriction of row crops on steep slopes

Control of wheel sizes and pressure

Restrictions of cross overs and heavy machinery

Restrictions of manure and fertilizer application

Long term measures

Crop rotation

Strip cropping

Use of organic soil improvers/exogenous organic matter

Control of irrigation and drainage

Change of field patterns and sizes (please use the comment box to specify)

Technical constructions (ditches, terraces, retention ponds)

Livestock related measures

Afforestation

Other


Technical remarks

In the following you may find some useful information on the technical handling of the online survey and the terminology used.

Getting started

You have been provided with a personal password that enables you to access the online questionnaire. Just follow the link sent to you in this E-mail or insert:

http://soco-policy.zalf.de in your web browser and enter your password and login.

Inserting data and terminology used

After passing a welcome page you are invited to add national/regional policies concerning soil conservation following our proposed categories. These categories are Mandatory Measures (MM), Voluntary Incentive Based Measures (VIBM) and Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives (IAM+PI)

Mandatory Measures (MM)

Mandatory measures involve the government regulator, mandating desired measures into law and then using reinforcement and sanctions mechanisms to enforce compliance. Clearly specified targets are set, and regulations are specified to control the problem.

PLEASE add data within this category concerning:



Voluntary Incentive Based Measures (VIBM)

In contrast to direct regulations, Voluntary Incentive Based Measures (VIBM) indirectly influences firms’ actions by providing financial incentives for pollution reduction or environmentally friendly practices.

PLEASE add data within this category concerning

- Measures as part of the Rural Development Plans (Directive No.1698/2005, Axis 1 (‘Improving the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry sector”), 2 (‘Improving the environment and the countryside”) and 4 (‘LEADER”))



Increasing Awareness Measures and Private Initiatives (IAM+PI) aim at the promotion of environmental-quality objectives and a sustainable agricultural system. The compliance is voluntary and the programmes tempt to raise the awareness of land users about the


contribution of their current practices to environmental problems and their awareness of good practices to reduce these problems.

PLEASE add data within this category concerning


Please note, that all information provided under this heading is very valuable but should not lead to a reduced coverage of the other two sections.

Accessibility of the online-questionnaire

The questionnaire will be accessible until closure (30.04.2008). We kindly ask you to insert

data as soon as possible.

Finalisation of the Survey/ Submission of data

As the online survey is directly connected to a server based database, your data is automatically saved, once being inserted. Please use the logout button to leave the survey. A daily backup ensures data safety. After closure of the survey, missing data may only be included exceptionally via E-mail, but this should be avoided.

Thank you very much again for taking your time for collaboration with the ZALF-team.

Kind regards,


Annex: Excerpt from the Directive No. 1698/2005 referring to the measures under Axis 1, 2 and 4

Axis 1

Improving the competitiveness of the agricultural a nd forestry sector

Article 20

Measures

Support targeting the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry sector shall concern:

(a) measures aimed at promoting knowledge and improving human potential through:

(i) vocational training and information actions, including diffusion of scientific knowledge and innovative practises, for persons engaged in the agricultural, food and forestry sectors;

(ii) setting up of young farmers;

(iii) early retirement of farmers and farm workers;

(iv) use of advisory services by farmers and forest holders;

(v) setting up of farm management, farm relief and farm advisory services, as well as of forestry advisory services;

(b) measures aimed at restructuring and developing physical potential and promoting innovation through:

(i) modernisation of agricultural holdings;

(ii) improving the economic value of forests;

(iii) adding value to agricultural and forestry products;

(iv) cooperation for development of new products, processes and technologies in the agriculture and food sector and in the forestry sector;

(v) improving and developing infrastructure related to the development and adaptation of agriculture and forestry;

(vi) restoring agricultural production potential damaged by natural disasters and introducing appropriate prevention actions;

(c) measures aimed at improving the quality of agricultural production and products by:

(i) helping farmers to adapt to demanding standards based on Community legislation;

(ii) supporting farmers who participate in food quality schemes;


(iii) supporting producer groups for information and promotion activities for products under food quality schemes;

(d) transitional measures for the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia concerning:

(i) supporting semi-subsistence agricultural holdings undergoing restructuring;

(ii) supporting setting up of producer groups.

Axis 2

Improving the environment and the countryside

Article 36

Measures

Support under this section shall concern:

(a) measures targeting the sustainable use of agricultural land through:

(i) natural handicap payments to farmers in mountain areas;*

(ii) payments to farmers in areas with handicaps, other than mountain areas;*

(iii) Natura 2000 payments and payments linked to Directive 2000/60/EC;

(iv) agri-environment payments;

(v) animal welfare payments;

(vi) support for non-productive investments;

(b) measures targeting the sustainable use of forestry land through:

(i) first afforestation of agricultural land;

(ii) first establishment of agroforestry systems on agricultural land;

(iii) first afforestation of non-agricultural land;

(iv) Natura 2000 payments;

(v) forest-environment payments;

(vi) restoring forestry potential and introducing prevention actions;

(vii) support for non-productive investments.

* Note: These measures are also known as Less Favoured Area (LFA)


Axis 4

Leader

Article 61

Definition of the Leader approach

The Leader approach shall comprise at least the following elements:

(a) area-based local development strategies intended for well-identified subregional rural territories;

(b) local public-private partnerships (hereinafter local action groups);

(c) bottom-up approach with a decision-making power for local action groups concerning the elaboration and implementation of local development strategies;

(d) multi-sectoral design and implementation of the strategy based on the interaction between actors and projects of different sectors of the local economy;

(e) implementation of innovative approaches;

(f) implementation of cooperation projects;

(g) networking of local partnerships.


Annex 5. Letter of verification of experts

Dear Mr/Mrs …

I am writing to you on behalf of the Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) e.V., a German based research institution. We are currently working on the EU-financed tender ”EU wide Review of Policies and Regulatory Environment concerning Soil Conservation (J05/28/2007)” which is supported by the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) of the European Commission. This project will provide an EU-27 wide overview of the performance of soil protection in the agricultural landscape within the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union. The study will also provide an inventory on national and regional policies and initiatives concerning soil conservation.


- Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) specified in the Directive No.1782/2003, Annex IV and implemented through Cross Compliance (CC) (in relation to SPS or SAPS in the new member states)

- Measures as part of the Rural Development Plans (Directive No.1698/2005, Axis 1, 2 and 4 (LEADER))

- Any national or regional policy of significant importance.

Furthermore, other initiatives (Private Initiatives) are of interest in this survey if soil conservation issues are addressed by the policies mentioned above.

Besides a collection of these regulations and measures including their references, we kindly ask you to provide us as much information as accessible. If you need further documents to justify your time-off from your regular work, a letter of DG Agri underlining the project’s importance can be provided.

We are actually identifying national experts to participate in the online survey.

For that reason we kindly ask you:

- whether you feel in the position to fill in the questionnaire and/or to coordinate this activity within your institution

- and/ or to propose another person, preferably from the ….. Ministry of Agriculture that you consider a valuable resource person for the project outcome

For most countries, we only invite one or two key experts to fill in the questionnaire. ZALF team will only do minor amendments and linguistic levelling.

Participation in this survey is voluntary. Data will be treated confidentially. Data gathering will take place in form of an Online-survey with personal logins in April 2008 . There will be no financial benefit for the interviewees of this project.

Please send us your considerations as soon as possible and thank you very much for taking some time.

Best regards,


Annex 6. First email reminder

Dear Expert,

First of all thank you for taking some time to participate in the project ‘EU wide Review of Policies and Regulatory Environment Concerning Soil Conservation (JO5/28/2007)”.

Please keep in mind that the deadline for contribution of data is April 30.

When you insert measures please describe the single measures or policies in separate sheets. Different measures of the Rural Development Plans should be specified separately as single measures. Detailed descriptions of the efforts regarding agricultural soil conservation that are performed in the EU-27 are the heart of the current survey project.

Please send us an email when you consider data cont ribution from your institution is complete.

Please do not hesitate to contact us upon technical questions or other inquiries concerning the current survey.

You may find the questionnaire at:

www.soco-policy.eu

Username and password have been already delivered t o you in an earlier mail.

Please give us a short feedback upon the current status of your participation.

Best regards,


Annex 7. Second email reminder

Dear Expert,

Thank you again for taking some time to participate in the project ‘EU wide Review of Policies and Regulatory Environment Concerning Soil Conservation (JO5/28/2007)’. We have already received many data entries of high quality.

May we remind you to the deadline for contribution, which is April 30.

When you insert measures please describe the single measures or policies in separate sheets. Different measures of the Rural Development Plans (RDP) should be specified separately as single measures. If a RDP contains 10 relevant measures concerning agricultural soil protection, 10 sheets should be filled in. If several GAEC’s implemented in your country are relevant to agricultural soil protection, please take your time to describe them separately. We kindly ask you to provide as detailed descriptions of soil conservation related measures as possible and to involve further experts if necessary. This is an EU-27 wide stocktaking.

Please assign an individual English name to each measure described.

Please send us an email when data contribution from your institution is complete.

Please do not hesitate to contact us upon technical questions or other inquiries concerning the current survey. You may find attached a letter of the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DG AGRI) of the European Commission underlining projects importance. Further documents can be provided upon request.

You may find further information about the overall project at:

http://soco.jrc.es/index.html

You may find the questionnaire at:

www.soco-policy.eu

Username and password have been already delivered t o you in an earlier mail.

Please give us a short feedback upon the current status of your participation.

Thank you very much for spending your time and for your kind contribution to this questionnaire!

Best regards,


Annex 8. Third email reminder

Dear Expert,

Thank you very much for having participated in the project ‘EU wide Review of Policies and Regulatory Environment Concerning Soil Conservation (J05/28/2007)’. Several hundreds of data entries have been received from almost all EU-27 countries and regions. Reports are to be processed and we will keep you informed where the information gathered by this project will be accessible.

Please note that the agreed deadline of April 30th has passed and apart from individual extensions for data submission, the current survey is to be closed definitely in the next days.

Please have a short glance on the information submitted to make sure it is complete and in English (apart from the local name of the policy measures).

Please give us a short confirmation that data contribution from your institution is finished.

Data submitted by the participating experts in the current project is not expected to be complemented.

Best regards,

Final Report J05/28/2007publ.ext.zalf.de/docs/Final_Report_SoCo-Pol_Rev.pdf · 2014-01-24 · Final...

Documents

Transcript of Final Report J05/28/2007publ.ext.zalf.de/docs/Final_Report_SoCo-Pol_Rev.pdf · 2014-01-24 · Final...