Germany lobbies EU to suspend crop rotation rules & More News Here

German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir is lobbying the European Commission to postpone a brand new regulation on crop rotation in order that farmers can develop extra wheat in view of the warfare in Ukraine. EURACTIV Germany stories.

Özdemir has requested that the brand new rules on crop rotation, that are supposed to apply from 2023, ought to come into drive one 12 months later, Özdemir mentioned in an announcement revealed Wednesday (11 May).

According to the brand new laws, farmers could not domesticate the identical principal crop on the identical arable land for 2 years in a row. For instance, if winter wheat was grown on a discipline in a single 12 months, maize, rape or related crops would have to be grown the next 12 months.

“The Russian war of aggression on Ukraine and the effects on global food security are a concern for all of us,” mentioned Özdemir, mentioning that his request is predicated on the at present strained international grain markets.

“I am therefore lobbying Brussels to delay the new crop rotation scheme so that our farmers can produce more wheat,” mentioned Germany’s agriculture minister, including that wheat might in any other case now not be grown throughout many fields this autumn.

Making farmers’ work simpler

Germany isn’t depending on Ukrainian or Russian grain exports, however is itself an essential international provider of wheat, boasting a 5% market share in 2020.

According to Özdemir, suspending crop rotation rules is a greater approach to improve grain manufacturing than permitting farmers to produce crops on fallow land and different protected areas.

This latter measure was proposed by the European Commission in its current communication on meals safety, however Germany opted to solely release protected areas for fodder use.

The regulation on crop rotation, generally known as the “GAEC 7 standard” within the reformed CAP, is a part of the so-called conditionality rules which solely permits farmers to obtain direct CAP funds in the event that they meet a set of minimal necessities.

Postponing the regulation would “considerably facilitate farmers’ current cultivation plans and the implementation of EU agricultural subsidies in 2023, without having any significant negative impacts on climate protection or biodiversity,” mentioned Özdemir.

But not everybody agrees.

“That’s a completely misplaced proposal,” Celia Nyssens of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) advised EURACTIV. “Crop rotations are crucial for pest management and soil protection so this will have negative impacts,” Nyssens added.

“Simple practices like crop rotations are among the most important measures to build resilience,” notably as “we go from one extreme weather event to another every year,” she additionally mentioned.

Unintended uncomfortable side effects

Rather than trying to improve meals manufacturing due to the warfare in Ukraine, Nyssens believes that these in danger or already going through meals insecurity must be “able to access and afford food” and that land and crops must be redirected “for human meals use relatively than bioenergy or livestock feed.

For agricultural economist Sebastian Lakner, promising to deal with wheat use and measures that restrict consumption of biofuels and feed relatively than postpone the crop rotation rule may lead to barely greater wheat manufacturing.

The scientist additionally identified that briefly enjoyable the rule might create incentives that will, for instance, make it simpler for maize farmers with shut crop rotations to use their cultivation as feed or bioenergy.

Until now, maize producers have been struggling probably the most with the necessities for crop rotation and are eager to plant maize greater than as soon as.

Özdemir’s initiative was welcomed by the German Farmers’ Association (DBV). “We want to be able to continue to grow bread wheat to the same extent as before,” the affiliation’s president, Joachim Rukwied, mentioned.

This measure ought to solely be seen as step one, in accordance to Rukwied. “We now expect proposals from Brussels and Berlin on how to solve the food crisis,” he added.

[Edited by Benjamin Fox]

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