EFA Delegated Act Revised

Protein crops may be more valuable in terms of greening after a change of position by the European Commission.  The EC has pledged to adopt a revised Delegated Act which increases the weighting factor for nitrogen fixing crops from 0.3 to 0.7.  This makes each hectare of such crops worth 0.7 Ha under Ecological Focus Areas.  The Commission has also pledged to “thoroughly evaluate” the implementation of EFA obligations after the first year of application and promised to keep the administrative burden to a minimum. It has also stated that it will revise the delegated act concerning EFA rules if they result in “a noticable reduction of the production potential of the EU.” 

These changes are in response to the European Parliament’s concern over how elements of the CAP reform agreement were being implemented.  It seems likely that the changes will be enough to ‘buy off’ opposition and the legislation will otherwise remain unchanged.

It should be remembered that, whilst the EFA rules are now pretty clear at an EU level, it does not mean we know the eligible areas on a national basis.  Each part of the UK has the option of choosing which EFA elements it wants to allow – there is no guarantee that everything on the EU list will be included.  Countries also have the option of not applying the ‘positive’ weighting factors (i.e. anything more than one).  They have to use the negative factors, such as the nitrogen-fixing-crops 0.7 weighting.  In England, such decisions are expected to go in front of the Minister before Easter.  Therefore, we may have more clarity shortly.  This does not mean that questions such as the definition of nitrogen fixing crops, or the management rules, will be answered at the same time.