• April 7, 2025

Partners of the Life Multi Peat project in advocating the CAP’s GAEC 2 standard

On 04.04.2025, the partners of the Life Multi Peat project sent a joint position paper to the European Commission, including Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen, on the importance of and need to maintain the environmental standard of the Common Agricultural Policy regarding the protection of wetlands and peatlands (GAEC 2).

This joint statement is a response to the European Commission’s announcement regarding the simplification package for the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, which is planned to be announced in May 2025. In it, project Life MultiPeat partners express their strong concerns about the further simplification of CAP environmental rules, in particular GAEC 2, and about the current lack of incentives for farmers and landowners to rewet degraded peatlands.

Drained peatlands used for agriculture must be effectively protected from further degradation, and effective mechanisms must be introduced to support their re-wetting. This is important both in terms of the need to halt adverse climate change and to ensure the stability of agricultural production and food security.

The full statement can be found under the article.

Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) are a set of standards under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union. These standards aim to ensure that farmers receiving CAP support (direct payments) maintain their land in a way that protects the environment, preserves soil quality, help mitigate climate change and support biodiversity.

The GAEC 2  focuses on the protection of carbon-rich soils, such as peatlands and wetlands. Its aim is to preserve these areas due to their significant role in carbon storage and biodiversity conservation.

Many farmers express concerns about the restrictions imposed by the GAEC 2, particularly regarding activities like plowing and drainage on peatlands and wetlands. They worry about the potential impact on their farming practices and profitability. However, it should be emphasised that in most member states, the requirements related to the standard have been designed to have a minimal impact on existing agricultural activities. The main requirements are the prohibition of ploughing meadows on peatlands (designated in each country by map layers prepared by agricultural agencies) and the prohibition of creating new ditches on such land. The ban on deep ploughing arable land covered by GAEC 2 (introduced only in some countries) seems to be the most problematic, but no-tillage, which is permitted, is now becoming an increasingly common practice subsidised in some countries. 

The partners of the Life Multi Peat project, taking into account the importance of GAEC 2 for climate protection and biodiversity, propose, above all, to increase the area of land covered by the standard. At the same time, taking into account the need to ensure the profitability of farms, we propose the introduction of voluntary incentives that are profitable for farmers to protect and improve the conservation status of the land covered by this standard. Practices implemented on degraded peatlands to re-wet and restore peat-forming capacity should be adequately rewarded. They will also not be implemented on the required large scale without information campaigns explaining the importance of peatlands and the enormous benefits that the agricultural sector can derive from their restoration.

Aleksandra Pępkowska-Król