Landscape issues of the EU Common Agricultural Policy reform: implications for modelling

Abstract

The 2003 reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) fundamentally changes the support of agriculture in the EU-15 and will have an important impact on land use and landscape issues. Furthermore, the introduction of the CAP in the 10 new EU Member States will have important impacts on agricultural land use. The three key elements of the 2003 CAP reform of Pillar One (market and price policy, direct payments), set out in Regulation (EC) 1782/2003, are

• introduction of a decoupled single farm payment for EU farmers, independent from production; (limited coupled elements may be maintained to avoid abandonment of farming),

• compulsory modulation (a reduction of direct payments exceeding € 5,000 to additionally finance the new rural development policy) and

• link of the payments to compliance with environmental, food safety, animal and plant health and animal welfare standards, as well as the requirement to keep all farmland in good agricultural and environmental condition (‘cross-compliance’).

Modulation and cross-compliance (CC) are not new to the CAP but were only voluntary measures and applied by few Member States before.