NATURE CONSERVATION AND FARMING

For decades, "orderly farming" and "environmentally-sound agricultural practices" have been considered to be one and the same; this, however, is not valid any more for modern cropland management. Setting out for ecologically compatible farming requires a change of the agro-political framework. For that, farmers need the solidarity and support of society. Yet farmers have to realize that production of foodstuffs alone is not any more the only objective of their economical activities: resource, biotope, and species protection are at least equally important challenges to farming. These services, however, have to be financed through adequate commodity prices or production-neutral income transfer. Nature conservation demands and programms without financial compensation, too, are not up-to-date any more either.