Greening: a more complex income support scheme, not yet environmentally effective

Agriculture, in particular intensive farming, exerts a negative impact on the environment and climate. Greening - a direct payment rewarding farmers for farming practices beneficial for soil quality, carbon sequestration and biodiversity – was introduced in 2015, as a means to enhance the environmental and climate performance of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. We found that greening, as currently implemented, is unlikely to meet this objective, mainly due the low level of requirements, which largely reflect the normal farming practice. We estimate that greening has led to a change in farming practice on only around 5 % of all EU farmland. We made a number of recommendations on how to design more effective environmental instruments for the Common Agricultural Policy post 2020.