Berlin, 02. 02.2021: Before the start of the Special Agriculture Ministers’ Conference on the national implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on February 5, 2021, the WWF urges the Agriculture Ministers to bind the environmental departments in a binding and permanent manner in the future. “The ecological challenges and deficits in agriculture are enormous. The CAP must set the course for this, otherwise it will fail in its overall social responsibility. The Agriculture Ministers’ Conference must shape the further planning of the national CAP strategy in close coordination with the environmental departments. Only in this way can agriculture, as one of the drivers of the climate crisis and the decline in biological diversity, become a problem solver, ”says WWF nature conservation director Christoph Heinrich, who is also a member of the Agriculture Commission for the Future (ZKL).
The nature conservation organization is also urging the Agriculture Ministers’ Conference to ensure that in 2022 the highest possible percentage of the lump-sum EU direct agricultural payments available for Germany is diverted to promoting agri-environmental and climate measures and rural areas. A reallocation of up to 15 percent is possible; in the last two years the reallocation rate has been 6 percent. “These measures are so far one of the few instruments to provide farmers with effective and targeted financial support in protecting the climate, water, biological diversity and animal welfare,” says Heinrich. With the money, farmers could already make their farms fit for the future.
The WWF hopes that the upcoming Special Agriculture Ministers ‘Conference (AMK) will send a clear signal for a close interlinking of agricultural and environmental policy through the active future involvement of the Environment Ministers’ Conference (UMK) in the debate on the design of the common agricultural policy. One advantage: both presiding countries are responsible for both departments. AMK Chairman Wolfram Günther (Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen) from Saxony is both Environment and Agriculture Minister, as is the current UMK Chairman Dr. Till Backhaus (SPD) from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
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