Based on Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003, EU member states are obliged to define Cross Compliance (CC) requirements and standards which must be fulfilled by farmers receiving direct payments. Additionally, an establishment of agricultural consultation systems providing advice to proprietors regarding questions of Cross Compliance requirements must be finished in all member states no later than 1 January 2007. Main objective of the one-year study is to contribute to the development of such consultation systems.
The IfLS is commissioned to implement the CIFAS study by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in Copenhagen. 11 partner institutes from other EU member states are partici-pating as sub-contractors.
As a first step, a CIFAS database was developed which presently captures the following in-formation related to every EU member state:
- realisation of CC requirements and standards;
- agricultural consultation systems existing or in course of development;
- indicators and consultation tools available to agricultural advisors and enterprises for assessing accordance with CC requirements and standards.
Based on cross-national analyses, additional steps were taken in 2006: Good practice examples of agricultural consultation systems were to be identified, and recommendations regarding consultation tools and enterprise-related indicators of Cross Compliance implementation were to be developed.