Agriculture and Environment

1. Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Agriculture and Environment Future of European Rural Development. Cracow, 30 November – 1 December 2005

2. National Agri-environmental Programme 2004-2006 • Usual good farming practices • 7 packages • Plan of AE commitments elaborated by AE field officer

3. Packages • „sustainable farming”, based on fertilisers’ input reduction, balancing of fertilisers’ management and utilisation and on keeping a proper crop rotation; • „organic farming”, based on utilisation of organic farming methods in the meaning of the Act on organic farming; • „maintenance of extensive meadows”, related to re-introduction or continuation of grass-cutting, starting from the 1st July (or 15 August), on meadows of high nature values, endangered with degradation; • „maintenance of extensive pastures” based on usage of low-input grazing as the main way of land management on semi-natural habitats, traditionally managed as pastures;

4. Packages • „water and soil protection”, based on intercrops implementation, in order to increase the share of soils covered by plants during the autumn – winter period; • „buffer zones”, based on maintaince or introduction of buffer zones and strips in order to protect water, soils and biodiversity • „protection of local farm animal races”, based on maintenance of local race farm animals herds (horses, cattle and sheep), that are endangered with extinction.

5. Payment and Area of Implementation:

6. Implementation of NAPtill 18th of November Number of applications – 31.650 soil and water protection – 15.620, organic farming – 6.995, buffer zones – 64, extensive meadows and pastures – 7.018 Amount – 298.108.085 PLN Area – 543.064 ha

7. New agri-environmental programme • New approach based on prior experiences • Verification of existing packages • New packages (pond package, water pool, protection of local plants, mosaic of arable land)

8. Remarks on implementation of agri-environmental programmes • Relatively high absorption • Agri-environmental advisers • Regionalization in implementation of some packages • Low number of packages • Low payments

9. Agri-environmental programme 2007 - 2013 • Programming based on prior experiences • New possibilities (Natura 2000 payments, non-productive investments) • New agri-environmental packages

10. Agri-environmental programme 2007 - 2013 • Basic conditions and the beneficiary according to the on-going programme • Application procedure – based on the on-going system (modification in application form and agri-environmental plan).

11. Agri-environmental programme 2007 - 2013 • Horizontal approach (possibility of regionalization of payments and requirements) • Usual good farming practice and „cross – compliance” • Modification of the packages and new packages

12. Agri- environmental packages2007 - 2013 • Nature packages (basic package, valuable grassland); • Water packages (buffer zones, water-pools, extensive ponds) • Arable land packages (integrated production, biological production, anti-erosion package, mosaic of arable land)