THE CAP GREENING EFFECTS – THE POLISH EXPERIENCE

Abstract

In 2015 greening requirements were implemented. All farmers entitled to the Single Area Payment are obliged to implement greening, depending on agricultural surface and structure. Presently, 30% of the national financial envelope is connected with greening. Legal rules obliged farmers to more environmental friendly farms` organization. The European Commission regulations indicated the importance of crop diversification in the context of soil quality improvement, the maintenance of permanent grasslands in order to ensure the carbon sequestration, soil protection and biodiversity, as well as the maintenance of ecological focus areas that guarantees biodiversity at the farm level. The aim of the paper is to present the farms` organizational changes and outcomes after the implementation of greening mechanism. Polish FADN data were used for 2014 and 2015, that covered 5.7 thousand farms. The research results indicated the farms` adaptation to greening requirements. The production capacity of the analysed FADN farms did not decrease after the greening mechanism introduction. Farmers combined production objectives with environmental ones, that was the result of farms` proper organization and enlarging agricultural land. The scope of changes introduced in plant production referring to the greening requirements was insignificant and concerned mainly larger farms (with arable land area of 15 ha and more). Farmers introduced the required organizational changes smoothly, mainly by increasing area under leguminous and papilionaceous plants.  The environment-friendly farms’ organization before greening introduction facilitated their adaptation in 2015. In the short term, greening doesn’t cause negative productive and economic outcomes. In the longer perspective, greening environmental effects should contribute to factor productivity increase.

Keywords: Greening, the Common Agricultural Policy, Direct payments, Natural environment, FADN, Poland

Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2017.212