The provisional agreement reached by MEPs and the Danish Presidency of the Council will alleviate some of the administrative and regulatory burdens on farmers during the current common agricultural policy (CAP) programming period.

Environmental requirements

To protect biodiversity and prevent farmers from costly and time-consuming ploughing of land every five to seven years to keep their land arable, MEPs secured an agreement that land considered arable on 1 January 2026 could maintain this status even if it has not been ploughed up, tilled, or reseeded.

MEPs agreed with the Council that farmers certified as organic will be deemed to comply automatically with several requirements to maintain land in good agricultural and environmental condition (GAEC) for those parts of their holdings that are organic and in-conversion to organic. Member States will be allowed to limit this simplification in case controls would create high administrative burden.

On-the-spot checks

MEPs successfully…