The CAP eco-schemes

The importance of conserving the environment lies in the very importance of the environment, since we all live in it. Therefore, if we want to ensure our own survival and well-being, and that of other living beings, we must worry about their care and protection.

The strategic plan designed by Spain to develop the 2023-2027 programming of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), includes the novel requirement to develop eco-schemes, voluntary actions by farmers to defend the environment for which they will obtain payments.

From Defeder, we want to inform our agricultural readers about these new eco-schemes. The eco-schemes must serve to improve the sustainability of Spanish agriculture, thus, our farmers can continue to advance in sustainability and meet the environmental objectives set by Europe.

The proposal of eco-schemes, also called eco-regimes, is based on 7 concrete practices, which cover all possible land uses, that is, permanent and temporary pastures, farmland and permanent crop plots. The seven practices that will be supported are as follows:

Practice 1: Increase in the carbon sink capacity of pastures by promoting extensive grazing.
Practice 2: Maintenance and improvement of biodiversity through sustainable mowing and maintenance of unmowed margins on pasture surfaces.
Practice 3: Rotations in farmland.
Practice 4: Conservation agriculture: direct sowing.
Practice 5: Spaces of biodiversity in herbaceous farmland and permanent crops.
Practice 6: Spontaneous vegetable covers or planted in woody crops.
Practice 7: Inert vegetable covers in woody crops.

Defeder, as a company specialized in the manufacture of organic fertilizers, promotes organic farming as opposed to conventional farming.