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Achieving uptake at basin levels

The targeting of CAP payments towards areas of greater needs for improving the water stature has generally been limited until now. Direct payments were not targeted while farmers were free to choose their greening measures and their spatial implementation. RDP measures were voluntary and fewer farmers participated. However, to achieve a successful and environmentally effective transition, changes in land management need to targeted to areas creating pressure, and, where necessary, should occur in a coordinated way across whole basins. Although good practice in spatial targeting do exist (Box 4.9), incoherence and overlaps were observed in the types, ambition and targeting of measures under Pillar I and Pillar II instruments (Devot et al., 2020).

The new delivery model of the CAP provides an opportunity to improve the targeting of Pillar I payments, through the eco-scheme (Lampkin et al., 2020), and with better synergies between conditionality, eco-schemes, and RDPs instruments. This may be effectively reinforced thanks to the obligation to involve competent authorities for the environment and climate and the obligation to show greater ambition than at present with regard to care for the environment and climate (EC, 2020a). Using a results-based approach to eco-schemes and rural development payments where controls are made based on results instead of whether particular management actions have been implemented, would also enhance transparency in the delivery of objectives and encourage farmers to be more innovative in the processes that they use (Lampkin et al., 2020).

Collection action and multi actor approaches are supported under RDPs, and Member States have supported them in various ways, sometimes going beyond cooperation between farmers by integrating research actors and value chain operations (ENRD, 2018). The importance of integrating value chain actors is increasingly highlighted as a critical success factor in sustained uptake of crop diversification leading to reduced water pressures (Menet et al., 2018; Zakeossian et al., 2018). In Slovenia for example, beneficiaries of collective action measures include producer groups and agricultural cooperatives aiming to tackle to diffuse pollution in catchments where water bodies fail WFD objectives (Berglund et al., 2017). Chapter 5 examines in more detail the role of the value chain in the transformation of agricultural towards more sustainable practices.