CONSEQUENCES OF THE CAP REFORM ON FARM ACTIVITIES AND THE ENVIRONMENT – RESULTS OF AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

The Common European Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform not only has an impact on agriculture but also has significant effects on nature and the environment. This is specifically caused by decoupling direct payments from agricultural production, which will increase the market orientation of agriculture, and the implementation of Cross Compliance. Based on an empirical analysis of the consequences of the CAP reform in eight German regions, a number of key aspects for a future environmentally friendly development of the agrarian policy are suggested. The results indicate that the CAP reform currently does not increase the proportion of environmentally friendly production systems significantly. Cross Compliance is shown to have certain positive effects; it improves the control of environmentally damaging farm activities, in particular in the field of nitrate control. However, positive effects are limited and CC is often negatively associated with nature conservation. The results furthermore show that farms are affected varyingly by the CAP reform.