The conclusions of the PEPAC for SEO/BirdLife they have many shortcomings. After the meeting of the Coordination Body of the CAP Strategic Plan (PEPAC), the government and the autonomous communities published their assessment of the first year of application of the new CAP.
They concluded “that the combination of enhanced conditionality, eco-regimes and agri-environmental obligations for rural development have represented significant progress in the environmental ambition of the new CAP.”
This conclusion is based on the number of requests for eco-regimes by farmers and the number of requests for organic production, which far exceed expectations.
SEO/BirdLife believes that in order to evaluate the impact on the environmental objectives of the CAP, in addition to the area covered by the different measures, it is also necessary to take into account the potential impact of the designed measures and systems on to monitor and evaluate the real effect on the conservation of biodiversity. And there is room for improvement in both the design of the measures and the evaluation of their impact and there is still a long way to go.
Biodiversity, the great forgotten in PEPAC
One of the key strategic objectives of the Common Grace Policy is to “halt and reverse the process of biodiversity loss, improve its ecosystem services and conserve habitats and landscapes.”
In addition to aligning with the objectives of the 2030 Agenda and the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity 2030 strategies, increasing the biodiversity of crop fields and restoring their ecosystem services is an essential objective to maintain farmers’ livelihoods. and maintain the prosperity of the EU. rural economy is alive.
However, taking into account the final design of the eco-regimes and rural development interventions, as well as the reception data of this first year that became clear during the meeting of the PEPACSEO/BirdLife believes that we are still far from achieving the CAP’s biodiversity targets.
PEPAC: one poorly adapted and paid eco-regime
Although some other objectives of the PEPAC may have indirect benefits, but there is only one eco-regime specifically aimed at improving biodiversity: Agroecology: Biodiversity Spaces. An ecoregime initially designed for arable land and extended to woody crops, without adapting it to the obvious agronomic and landscape differences between both typologies.
This may have contributed, among other things, to its limited use in woody crops, which are also important for the conservation of biodiversity, due to their expansion (woody crops cover more than 5 million hectares in Spain) and their distribution in the area. hotspot of Europe’s most important biodiversity, the Mediterranean.
If we add to these limitations on its implementation and effectiveness the much lower financial capital, the low success of this measure is a logical result. In fact, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, this applies to the only two eco-regimes that farmers can adhere to in woody crops (only one of which can be requested).
In Andalusia – the community with the largest area of these types of crops – of the total area covered by both ecoregimes, over 97% of the area is covered by herbaceous or inert covers, compared to less than 3% in that area. did the same. possession in spaces of biodiversity. And while it is improving slightly nationally, it still remains at 80% and 20% respectively.
In the case of the grasslands, the reception was even more testimonial. Of the more than 6.5 million hectares that have applied for one of the available rangeland and grassland ecoregimes, only 85,000 hectares have adopted biodiversity-related practices (almost all in wet meadows).
It is noteworthy that these figures represent a receipt of 80% of the total area of pastures and pastures existing in Spain, which is the productive orientation with the greatest participation in this aid, which may reflect the need for support of extensive livestock farming. and the potential positive impact of these new arrangements on the viability of the sector. However, the conditions attached to payments for extensive grazing do not guarantee the biodiversity benefit either.
The figures are slightly different for arable crops. They have a more balanced reception between rotational practices (in the ecoregime of carbon agriculture and agroecology) and biodiversity spaces, with approximately 5.5 and 2.4 million hectares respectively. However, this means that less than 25% of the total arable land area has implemented biodiversity practices, and less than the area declared fallow in recent years.
On the other hand, there has also been a significant increase in the area of direct sowing, one of the available eco-regimes, which SEO/BirdLife has repeatedly expressed disagreement about because it is linked to the use of herbicides and is therefore inconsistent with the objectives that justify this aid, with biodiversity once again being the loser.
The situation varies between autonomous communities, something related to the different weight of the CAP and the main productive orientations in each of them. But the eco-regimes also suffer the consequences of their potential, with amounts again being higher for the most productive crops, based on the concept of ‘foregone profits’, which means that the lowest level of support through direct aid is given to the most extensive farms towed. or farms with lower yields, thus trapped in a spiral of low profitability.
Combining ecoregimes: key to nature conservation
It is clear that the implementation of herbaceous covers, crop rotation, fallow land and extensive livestock farming, if properly managed, can have very positive impacts on biodiversity, but when combined with an increase in landscape complexity, the potential is even even bigger. SEO/BirdLife therefore considers it necessary to create spaces for flora and fauna that function as a source of biodiversity, so that the other actions have a significant impact on the recovery of species.
In fact, the combination of both factors is decisive for the recovery of biodiversity in crops and agricultural areas. For example, it has been scientifically demonstrated in studies by the University of Jaén and the CSIC in the LIFE Olivares Vivos project: combining the increase of biodiversity spaces with the management of herbaceous soils results in a potential of more than 33%.
For this reason, SEO/BirdLife has requested that different eco-regimes be allowed to be requested and, in particular, that biodiversity spaces be compatible with all others, so that they are truly effective in achieving this environmental objective and contribute to improving the profitability of the farms. In any case, the redesign of the Agroecology ecoregime is essential. It is necessary to distinguish the requirements between arable land and permanent (woody) crops, and to allocate an adequate budget to them.
Biodiversity, also absent from rural development interventions
SEO/BirdLife also believes that agricultural environmental policy does not provide enough opportunities to contribute to biodiversity objectives, because few measures are aimed at this goal or few budgets have been allocated for it. In the same way, the importance of the Natura 2000 network is not sufficiently integrated into this new network PEPAC, with little specific support for farmers in these areas. Regarding the latter, SEO/BirdLife has repeatedly requested an additional supplement, in addition to the priority in providing support to agricultural businesses in the Red Natura 2000.
In this analysis, SEO/BirdLife believes that the evaluation of the results cannot be limited to numbers of areas and requests. As set out in the Strategic Environmental Statement of the PEPACit is essential to monitor the effects of the measures against the intended impact objectives, and to set up adequate indicator and evaluation systems, including in the field of biodiversity.
SEO/BirdLife projects for widespread and profitable sustainability
All this so-called “green architecture” of the CAP (conditionality, eco-regimes and agri-environment) has great potential and has represented some progress compared to the previous period, at least in theory. But for this to become a reality in rural areas, much more ambition is needed in its implementation and in supporting farmers.
To contribute to this, SEO/BirdLife has initiated projects to demonstrate with real actions that this transition to more sustainable and profitable agri-food systems is possible, and to learn to translate the experience into associated government policies. So in addition to the LIFE project Living olive grovesthe organization develops others, such as Secanos Vivos or the LIFE Agroestepas Ibéricas, in addition to numerous agreements and smaller projects in different types of production, such as olive groves, citrus fruits, dairy cattle or fruit trees.