Study on environmental consequences of Sheep and Goat farming and of the Sheep and Goat premium system

This study was undertaken for DG AGRI of the European Commission to examine the environmental effects of sheep and goat (hereafter S&G) farming and of the EU premium system for supporting S&G farming (Council Regulation 2529/2001). It focuses on the six main S&G producing countries of the EU (France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom), from 1999 to 2005.

During this period the mid-term review of the CAP (Council Regulation 1782/2003) introduced the option of decoupling sheep and goat support payments, one objective of which was to promote more environmentally sustainable agriculture. This mechanism, along with other policy measures that affect S&G farming (such as Less Favoured Area and Agri-environmental payments) are also considered, resulting in an ex-ante analysis which tries to anticipate the consequences of the new set of interacting rules that will affect the S&G sector in the future.

The study also reviews the implementation of the S&G identification and registration system introduced in 2005 (Council Regulation 21/2004) and its implications for the environment, for example as a cross compliance measure that might replace the monitoring of sheep numbers where support is no longer paid on a headage basis (i.e. where it is fully decoupled).