How can the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) better preserve and promote biodiversity?

There needs to be significantly more biodiversity in EU agricultural landscapes. To achieve this, an efficient EU agri-environmental support system is required. Together with project partners from "CAP4GI – CAP for Diverse Landscapes," adelphi discusses measures, obstacles, and solutions with farmers in Baden-Württemberg and Thuringia.

Over the past decades, agricultural landscapes have experienced a dramatic decline in biological diversity, marked by the loss of habitats and the sharp decline of many plant and animal species. One of the main drivers of this development is the intensification of agriculture and the loss of structural diversity in agricultural landscapes, causing many animal and plant species to lose suitable habitats. However, biodiversity in agricultural landscapes provides the foundation for essential ecosystem services such as pollination, natural pest control, water regulation, carbon sequestration, and soil fertility. These functions are crucial for agricultural production. Therefore, the preservation and restoration of diverse agricultural landscapes are essential for our food security.

The CAP4GI project (Common Agricultural Policy for Green Infrastructure) analyses the decisions of farmers: Which measures do they implement and which do they not, and why? What obstacles arise during implementation? To explore these questions, the project employs socio-economic analyses and innovative socio-ecological modelling. Additionally, exchanges with farmers and other stakeholders about possible solutions take place in six regions in Baden-Württemberg and Thuringia.

The goal of the project is to develop proposals for the design of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) so that it becomes ecologically more effective and attractive for agricultural businesses, enabling farmers to make an effective contribution to the preservation of biodiversity in the cultural landscape. The project partners are adelphi research, Bodensee-Stiftung, Deutscher Naturschutzring (DNR), Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung (UFZ), Deutsches Zentrum für integrative Biodiversitätsforschung (iDiv), University of Rostock, and Wildtierland Hainich.

Results on EU Agricultural Support

In the past two years, adelphi and its project partners have identified these obstacles and developed suggestions to increase the attractiveness of environmental measures in exchange platforms with farmers in Baden-Württemberg and Thuringia. A policy brief titled "Utilising the potential of CAP for more biodiversity: Impulses from practice in Thuringia and Baden-Württemberg" has now been published, presenting the initial findings from these exchanges. The publication offers improvement suggestions for the design of environmental measures in EU agricultural support and is primarily aimed at decision-makers.

"Too low remuneration for measures," "excessive bureaucracy," and "lack of flexibility of measures, along with a perceived high sanction risk," were identified as key obstacles. Despite these barriers being known and studied for many years, the current political efforts to overcome them are deemed insufficient.

In discussions, farmers favoured the idea of a common good premium as a potential development of the CAP. Advisory-based systems also met with approval. However, collective models for cross-farm implementation of agri-environmental measures received little support.

The project partners emphasise that the current political plans to weaken minimum requirements in the CAP provide the wrong answers, as they neither improve planning and income security for farms nor solve the bureaucracy problem. Instead of lowering environmental standards, targeted, simplified, and income-effective remuneration for environmental services should be strengthened. They recommend increasing the budget for eco-schemes and measures of the second pillar, expanding the offer of eco-schemes, introducing a rising bonus for the multi-year implementation of measures such as flowering strips on the same area, and reducing administrative barriers and improving access to information and advice.

The policy brief and its recommendations were presented to members of the Bundestag and representatives of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) on May 14 during a parliamentary event.