Open AccessEnvironmental effectiveness of GAEC cross-compliance Standard 4.2 on biodiversity in set-aside management and economic evaluation of the competitiveness gap for farmers, part I
Author(s) -
Stefano Mocali,
Silvia Landi,
Arturo Fabiani,
Raimondo Piccolo,
A. Agnelli,
Giada d’Errico,
G. Mazza,
Marco Fedrizzi,
Giulio Sperandio,
Mirko Guerrieri,
Mauro Pagano,
Daniele Puri,
Paolo Bazzoffi,
Marta Biaggini,
Pietro Lo Cascio,
Claudia Corti
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
italian journal of agronomy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.509
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 2039-6805
pISSN - 1125-4718
DOI - 10.4081/ija.2015.711
Subject(s) - set aside , biodiversity , agriculture , conditionality , sustainability , business , payment , agroforestry , environmental resource management , natural resource economics , environmental science , environmental planning , geography , ecology , economics , biology , political science , finance , politics , law
In 2005, the CAP reform introduced the principle of conditionality that enables the access to single payments for farmers only ‘on condition’ that a series of commitments, such as the Statutory Management Requirements (SMR) and Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC), are respected. In particular, the GAEC Standard 4.2 aims to ensure the proper management of the set-aside fields through specific agronomic practices consisting in mowing or equivalent operations in order to conserve and protect biodiversity. This is considered one of the main environmental challenges of the new CAP. In the present work, we report the results of a monitoring activity aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of the Standard 4.2 on soil biodiversity. Monitoring involved both, soil microorganisms and soil arthropod fauna, representing the so-called ‘invisible biodiversity’, a key element for soil fertility and sustainability, as well as the ground-dwelling arthropods. Two different managements of set-aside, with and without mowing, were compared in three different areas in Italy: Caorle (VE), Fagna (FI), and Metaponto (MT). The results showed a slight but significant increase in biodiversity in the plots where mowing was applied