3 Multiple-benefit strategies for sustainable land stewardship
been reduced by 44% since 2013 through the introduction of a toxicity-based staggered incentive tax, largely without income losses for farmers (Kohli, 2019). The Scientific Advisory Council of the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (2019) suggests considering the introduction of incentive taxes in Germany on pesticides. In order to implement a successful greening strategy, which should be accompanied by a fundamental CAP reform in the EU, a change is needed in the awareness of pesticide users. This should be backed up by more information on the ecological implications of foodstuffs in order to promote healthy and environment-friendly diets (Section 3.4). This can only succeed if the food industry also supports this transformation process.
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Practical approaches to greening agriculture Cooperative models that enable more inclusion as well as the application of an integrated landscape approach offer starting points to stop the decline of biodiversity on arable land. Such eco-schemes of the CAP’s first pillar, which would replace the existing ‘Greening’ scheme (Box 3.3-1), should be made more target-oriented and opened up to include animal-welfare measures (WBAE, 2019). One concrete approach to designing and implementing measures to achieve biodiversity conservation, climate and water protection under the voluntary ecoschemes is to introduce a points or bonus system to reward farmers for their ambition or investment in the provision of public goods and ecosystem services (Neumann et al., 2017; DVL, 2020). The reward would to be made available by granting a public goods bonus from the first pillar. Calculations on the public goods bonus have shown that it certainly represents a practicable and administrable implementation model that has a positive impact on the environment and the climate (DVL, 2020). Further proposals have been made on the design of direct payments (BfN, 2020). The efficiency of the CAP can be increased by linking direct payments exclusively to agricultural purposes and benefiting the tenants of agricultural land. Since the decoupling of direct payments, a growing proportion of direct payments has been transferred to the owners of the land as the overall high share of leases in Germany has risen (Forstner et al., 2018). Paying CAP subsidies to non-farmer owners, e.g. insurance companies and banks, is inefficient as this amounts to a redistribution of CAP funds away from agriculture and an increase in leasing prices, which are regionally aligned with direct payments, making it more difficult to lease agricultural land (Forstner et al., 2018). The ‘Dutch Model’ serves as a European prototype for the cooperative implementation of agri-environmental measures (e.g. nature-conservation-oriented
ditch cleaning, riparian strips, later mowing times to protect birds, conservation of grassland). Since 2016, all agri-environmental and climate-change-mitigation measures in the Netherlands have been implemented and controlled by what are known as countryside conservation associations, of which farmers are also members. This cooperative landscape approach supports multifunctionality, reduces bureaucracy and offers farmers incentives to engage in conservation (Terwan et al., 2016). In Switzerland, on the other hand, a model is used that focuses not on cooperation among farmers, but on spatially interconnecting individual agri-environmental protection and climate-change-mitigation measures (Batary et al., 2011; Tscharntke et al., 2012). In Germany, there are countryside conservation associations in which nature conservation organizations, farmers and local politicians join forces to preserve near-natural landscapes or create new ones in the respective region, in the course of which the implementation of contractual nature conservation becomes the focus of the work of such conservation associations (Metzner et al., 2013; Boller et al., 2013). For example, in addition to countryside conservation associations, Bavaria has created the position of a wildlife habitat advisor (Janko et al., 2016), who advises individual farmers, supports the implementation of voluntary measures to enhance wildlife habitat and seeks to establish model areas (Müller, 2019). Humus certificates for production systems that verifiably achieve carbon sequestration by humus formation are controversial (Wiesmeier et al., 2020). Humus certificates are considered unfair since the potential for humus formation is greater the lower the humus content is as a result of previous farming practices; only those who have not previously invested in humus formation benefit. By contrast, intrinsically motivated farmers who had already invested do not benefit. As a counter-argument, reference is made to measurement problems and displacement effects as well as the complete reversibility of humus formation. Overall, it should be emphasized that the debate on CO2 certificates can provide a positive impetus for farmers to increasingly address the sustainable management and humus supply of their soils (Wiesmeier et al., 2020).
3.3.2.3 Sustainably increase agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa, achieve climate adaptation and food security Because of the specific conditions for subsistence farming in sub-Saharan Africa (Section 3.3.1.2), different strategic approaches are required there from those used in industrialized EU agriculture. The smallholder farms and pastoralist families in semi-arid regions affected by