Key messages
Read our guidance on Key messages before continuing
- We have captured no evidence for the effects of applying 'cross compliance' environmental standards for all subsidy payments on farmland wildlife.
'No evidence' for an action means we have not yet found any studies that directly and quantitatively tested this action during our systematic journal and report searches. Therefore we have been unable to assess whether or not the action is effective or has any harmful impacts. Please get in touch if you know of such a study for this action.
Background information and definitions
Cross compliance is when farmers have to meet certain statutory standards to qualify for direct support payments such as those under the first pillar of the current Common Agricultural Policy. The standards could include, for example, keeping the land in ‘good agricultural condition’ or managing soil to avoid erosion. The Swiss Ecological Compensation Areas scheme, under which farmers have to manage 7% of their land to qualify for area-based payments, was made obligatory in Switzerland under cross compliance in 1998. Studies examining the effects of this scheme are included in ‘Increase the proportion of natural/semi-natural habitat in the farmed landscape’.
Please cite as:
Dicks, L.V., Ashpole, J.E., Dänhardt, J., James, K., Jönsson, A., Randall, N., Showler, D.A., Smith, R.K., Turpie, S., Williams D.R. & Sutherland, W.J. (2019) Farmland Conservation Pages 291-330 in: W.J. Sutherland, L.V. Dicks, N. Ockendon, S.O. Petrovan & R.K. Smith (eds) What Works in Conservation 2019. Open Book Publishers, Cambridge, UK.
