4c) Agriculture

The importance of agriculture for the natural environment and for biodiversity is emphasised by the fact that nearly half the land surface in Belgium is farmed. Farming is an activity which goes beyond simple food production, affecting and using natural resources such as soil and water. Over the centuries, farming has contributed to the creation and maintenance of a large variety of agricultural landscapes (fields, pastures, quickset hedges, mixed woodland and pasture, etc.) which provide important semi-natural habitats for wildlife. Furthermore, the agricultural sector plays a multi-functional role as a food producer, biodiversity manager, motor for the economy in rural areas and guarantor of in situ conservation of local species, varieties and domestic animal breeds. However, in recent decades, intensification and specialisation of agriculture, and at the same time marginalisation and under-tilisation of land, have resulted in significant biodiversity loss in and around farmland. Farmland bird populations in particular have shown a decline over last decades.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), together with broader developmental dynamics of the agricultural sector, was one of the drivers for processes causing biodiversity loss. The CAP has its roots in 1950s Western Europe, whose societies had been damaged by years of war, and where agriculture had been crippled and food supplies could not be guaranteed. The emphasis of the early CAP was on encouraging better productivity in the food chain so that consumers had a stable supply of affordable food, but also to ensure that the EU had a viable agricultural sector. The CAP offered subsidies and guaranteed prices to farmers, thus providing them with incentives to produce. Financial assistance was provided for the restructuring of farming, for example by aiding farm investment, aiming to ensure that farms increased in size and that farmers developed management and technology skills so that they were adapted to the economic and social climate of the day. This policy supported the removal of hedgerows and the draining of wetlands, and intensification exerted a variety of pressures on ecosystems (high fertiliser inputs, drainage, increasing cutting frequencies and grazing pressures).

Since 1992, however, the CAP has been adapted to better integrate biodiversity needs. Increasing use of agri-environment measures, Good Farming Practice, organic farming and the support of Less Favoured Areas have favoured farmland biodiversity. The 2003 CAP reform (see box below) promotes these and other pro-biodiversity measures. Measures under market and income policy, including mandatory cross-compliance, the single farm payment (decoupling) and modulation, should provide indirect benefits to biodiversity. These measures have been implemented at EU level since 2005.

Reducing pressure on biodiversity from agriculture is a big challenge for farmers in Belgium because our agriculture is one of the most intensive, specialised and productive in Europe. Furthermore, farmers are currently facing serious challenges with regard to the continuation of their profession. The number of farmers is decreasing every year. They leave the profession for various reasons, including competitive pressures from the market, compensation for the drop in prices by a rise in the cultivated area and risks posed by the move towards energetic crops. Between 1998 and 2005, 14,134 farms ceased their ctivities (21.5 percent of Belgian farmers) with the total agricultural area decreasing only slightly (decrease of only 0.4 percent), so that the average area per farm is growing (FPS Economy - Directorate-general Statistics Belgium, agriculture census 1998 and 2005²³).

* CBD Instrument
A multi-year Programme of Work on Agricultural Biodiversity was adopted in 2000 (CBD Decision V/5). The programme of work focuses on assessing the status and trends of the world's agricultural biodiversity and pays attention to identifying and promoting adaptive-management practices, technologies, policies and incentives. In addition, it promotes the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources that are of actual or potential value for food and agriculture. The programme of work focuses on various technical aspects of new technologies, such as Genetic Use of Restriction Technologies (GURT), and the potential implications of these technologies for agricultural biodiversity, biosecurity, farming and the economy. It also has as crosscutting initiatives the International Initiative for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Pollinators and an International Initiative for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Soil Biodiversity. The programme also supports, and sees cooperation with the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture signed by Belgium in 2002 (CBD Decision VI/6).

* Current European agricultural policy
In June 2003, EU agriculture ministers adopted a fundamental reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The new CAP is more oriented towards consumer and taxpayer demands, while giving EU farmers the freedom to produce what the market wants. The vast majority of subsidies are paid independently from the volume of production. To avoid abandonment of production, Member States can choose to maintain a limited link between subsidy and production under well-defined conditions. These new "single farm payments" for EU farmers, independent from production, are dependent on observation of a set of 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").

* Other key elements of the reformed CAP

• Strengthened rural development policy with more EU money, new measures to promote the environment, quality and animal welfare and to help farmers to meet EU production standards starting in 2005,
• Reduction in direct payments ("modulation") for bigger farms to finance the new rural development policy,
• Mechanism for financial discipline to ensure that the farm budget fixed until 2013 is not exceeded,
• Revisions to the market policy of the CAP: milk, cereals, rice, nuts, starch potatoes, dried fodder sectors