Supporting Greening with Agri-Environmental Measures: Improvement or rather a waste of money?

The concept of Greening of Direct Payments and more specifically the Ecological Focus Area (EFA) are going into their second year of implementation. I will discuss the pragmatic option to additionally support EFA by agri-environmental measures (AEM) in order to improve effectiveness of EFA. The experience in Germany do not deliver strong arguments for this option. The advantage of this option is the application within the existing CAP-framework.

One effective EFA-option: Flouring strip with phacelia in Lindau, South Lower Saxony

Greening 2015: First preliminary data show necessity for further reform

As one main element of the EU’s CAP-Reform 2013, the Greening of EU Direct Payments has been implemented for in 2015 the first year. In the last weeks some first data on the implementation of Greening and the Ecological Focus Area (EFA) were unofficially presented by the EU Commission. I want to share these data and do a bit of commenting on them.

Ploughing on the Island of Föhr, in 2016 in Northern Germany

Efficiency and Productivity in Organic Farming – a Scientific Symposium at the ICAE in Milano

On August 9th, 2015 starts the International Congress of Agricultural Economists (ICAE) in Milano, Italy. On Thursday, August 13, 11-12:30 o’clock (Malliani Room 70) we will discuss topics of efficiency and productivity of organic farming systems together with some of the most specialized and experienced scientists in the field.

Together with Amos Mensah, Laure Latruffe & Jochen Kantelhardt

The Implementation of the CAP-Reform 2013 – an actual overview

A. Flexibility options of the EU-member-states

In December 2013, EU-Parliament and Council could reach an agreement on the main issues of the CAP-Reform 2013. The final EU-Regulation 1307/2013 is already published in the Official Journal of the European Union. Some of the main issues of the reform allow a lot of flexibility for the single EU-member-states. The following article will go into details which of the options are going to be used by the EU-member-states.

Extensive grassland in rural Bulgaria