LONE RANGER: The great bustard, characteristic of steppe habitats in southern and eastern Europe, has declined seriously throughout its range. Photo: EEA/OLAVI HIIEMAE

The 10 new EU member countries need to give a central role to well-targeted rural development measures, states a report published by the EEA this spring. In this way, they can minimise a likely increase in environmental pressures from farming.

Agriculture is an important factor in shaping the environment of the new member states, as well as Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. Their farming systems have low inputs, low productivity and a rich variety of plant and animal species compared with the older EU members. Many have large farmland areas of high natural value.

However, two environmentally damaging trends are expected to become more pronounced as a result of EU membership.

One is a moderate intensification of agriculture in productive areas, involving greater use of fertilisers, pesticides and machinery to increase yields. The other trend is the abandonment of farming on marginal, less productive land that often hosts an abundance of wildlife. The worry is that the land will be used for purposes that will drive off native fauna.

To minimise these pressures, the new members need to use the right combination of environmental instruments available under the EU common agricultural policy (CAP), according to the report Agriculture and the Environment in the EU Accession Countries.

Making use of the measures available under the rural development part of the CAP will be especially important. Such measures include so-called agri-environmental schemes, aid for less-favoured areas, farm advisory services and aid for small, semi-subsistence farms. But substantial administrative resources are needed to implement these measures successfully.

The main concern over land abandonment is with grasslands of high nature value that need limited grazing by sheep and cattle to maintain their richness. CAP payments can support farming income in these areas to some extent, but specific agri-environmental schemes will be needed as well.

A separate report by the EEA and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) warns that the EU will not reach the goal of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2010 if it does not do more to prevent the decline of its most biologically rich farmland. With less than one third of the EU’s high nature value farmland covered by nature protection sites, the conservation of such farmland also depends largely on rural development measures under the CAP, according to the report High Nature Value Farmland: Characteristics, Trends and Policy Challenges.