FARMERS AND ENVIRONMENTAL-REGULATION - EXPERIENCES IN THE FEDERAL-REPUBLIC-OF-GERMANY

A classification of regulatory styles is presented, including regulative policy, financial incentives, moral persuasion and self-regulation. Within this framework the important laws and programmes at federal or state level concerned with environmental regulation of agriculture in the FRG are analysed, with specific reference to groundwater contamination by nitrogen fertilizers. The principles of polluter pays and burden sharing are also discussed. The most important general conclusion is that regulation in practice does not occur according to one type or principle only, but a mixture of forms and instruments. This defiance of an abstract procedural logic has come about through the subordination of political regulation to a wider process of social change in agriculture.