EU policy and HNV farming

European policy commitments

1. Identifying HNV farming.
2. Supporting and maintaining HNV farming, especially through Rural Development Programmes (RDPs).
3. Monitoring changes to the area¹ of land covered by HNV farming, and to the nature values associated with HNV farming, as part of their monitoring of RDPs.

HNV farming commitments were established first in the 1998 EU Biodiversity Strategy², which includes the explicit objective “to promote and support low-intensity farming systems ...”. More recently, the EAFRD³ regulation Strategic Guidelines3 on rural development established HNV farming as one of three priorities for Axis 2 of Rural Development Programmes (RDPs), as follows:

„To protect and enhance the EU’s natural resources and landscapes in rural areas, the resources devoted to Axis 2 should contribute to three EU-level priority areas: biodiversity and the preservation and development of high nature value farming and forestry systems and traditional agricultural landscapes [...]”

¹Some confusion has arisen in connection with the use of the term “area”, which has two meanings in English: a) a delineated area b) superficial extent. The HNV indicator for Rural Development Programmes is concerned with the superficial extent of HNV farmland or land under HNV farming systems. This can only be measured against a comparable baseline, so that the translation of ‘area’ as ‘zone’ for the base indicator in some versions of Reg. 1974/2006 is unfortunate.
²COM(1998) 42 final Communication of the European Comisión to the Council and to the Parliament on a European Community Biodiversity Strategy
³Regulation 1698/2005 establishing EAFRD

Specific requirements for Rural Development Programmes (RDPs), relating to High Nature Value farming

In order to include effective measures for HNV farming in their RDPs, Member States need to do some background evaluation of needs and how best to address them. The EAFRD implementing regulation states that they should produce an analysis of¹:

„Environment and land management: the handicaps facing farms in areas at risk of abandonment and marginalisation; overall description of biodiversity with focus on that linked to agriculture and forestry, including high nature value farming and forestry systems [...]”

The 2007-2013 RDPs should demonstrate that measures are in place to maintain HNV farming and forestry systems. The effects of programmes will be evaluated against this objective, by applying specific “HNV indicators”, as follows.

The Common Result Indicators include:

• Area under successful land management contributing to:
  1. biodiversity and high nature value farming/forestry
  2. avoidance of marginalisation and land abandonment

The Common Impact Indicators include:

• Maintenance of high nature value farmland and forestry

The Commission aims to produce guidelines for the application of HNV indicators to RDP monitoring (a first draft has been written by IEEP and EFNCP²). These are intended to help Member States to estimate the area of HNV farming and to monitor how it evolves over time. The Forum is working to promote consistency across the EU on the interpretation and application of the basic HNV criteria.

¹Regulation 1974/2006 on the implementation of EAFRD
²IEEP and Beaufoy, G., 2007. Guidance Document to the Member States on the Application of the HNV Impact Indicator.