SAC Rural Policy Centre

The aim of this Policy Briefing is to propose a practical way forward to integrate farming and agri-environment payments post-2013 and to stimulate discussion across all stakeholders involved in the debate and delivery of CAP changes.

The key to the proposed Scottish Integrated Farm Scheme is that farming and wildlife in Scotland are intimately linked. Integrating CAP support for technically efficient, productive farming and biodiversity enhancement demonstrates the best use of resources and should be readily achieveable. This Briefing was written by an SAC conservation consultant with over 20 years experience of farming and agri-environment schemes.

The European Court of Auditors has recently published a report on the environmental effectiveness of European agri-environment schemes (see link below).The report concludes that the policy was not designed and monitored so as to deliver tangible environmental benefits, with objectives that are too vague to be useful for assessing the extent to which they have been achieved. The findings of the report may lead to changes in the design, implementation and monitoring of agri-environment schemes.

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