Agriculture and the Environment

Cross Compliance

Since 2005, all farmers receiving direct payments are subject to compulsory cross-compliance (under Council Regulation 1782/2003 and Commission Regulation 796/2004).

Cross-compliance includes two elements:

• Statutory Management Requirements: These requirements refer to 18 legislative standards in the field of the environment, food safety, animal and plant health and animal welfare.
   
• Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions: The obligation of keeping land in Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions refers to a range of standards related to soil protection, maintenance of soil organic matter and structure, avoiding the deterioration of habitats, and water management.

Cross-compliance represents the "baseline" or "reference level" for agri-environment measures. For all requirements falling under cross-compliance, the compliance costs have to be born by farmers ("Polluter-Pays-Principle").

Cross-compliance is an important tool for integrating environmental requirements into the Common Agricultural Policy. Cross-compliance ensures that support granted under the Common Agricultural Policy contributes to promoting sustainable agriculture and, thereby, responds positively to concerns of citizens at large.

The mechanism of cross-compliance creates synergies between CAP payments and the need to ensure compliance with basic mandatory standards.

For the programming period 2007-2013, cross-compliance also applies to most environmental payments forming part of Rural Development policy, and as from 2008 it applies also for certain wine payments.

Introduction

Integration

Cross-compliance

Agri-environment measures

Landscape

Biodiversity

Water

Soil

Agri-environmental indicators

Nitrates

Pesticides

Websites and documents

Related issues:

Climate change

Genetic resources

Bioenergy

Forestry measures