ifoam'96 Book of Abstracts 11th IFOAM Scientific Conference 11-15 August 1996, Copenhagen, Denmark

ECOWEB FRONT PAGE SUBJECT INDEX AUTHOR INDEX

Workshop

Implications of Spreading Org. Farming in North Germany.W3/P2

Center for Agricultural Landscape and Land Use Research (ZALF), Department of Landscape Development, Eberswalder Str. 84, D-15374 Müncheberg

The EU agrarian reform which will be finished in 1996 is the starting point for huge changes in the European rural development. This perspective lead to a study about the agro-landscape changes in North-East Germany and the ecological and socioeconomic implications at the Center for Agricultural Landscape and Land Use Research (ZALF) at Müncheberg. This study which circumferes 9.300 km2, is based on the change of economic frame conditions and the modelled development of farms concerning their economic situation and land use systems. The model included 105 regional farms with Scenario I (high degree of adaptibility of farms to the new economical situation) and Scenario II (low degree of adaptibility of farms to the new economical situation). Subscenarios were created for the acreage of arable land and grassland which are set aside as consequences of scenario I and II:Subscenario a with afforestation of the acreage taken out of production and Subscenario b with the establishment of grassland on arable land taken out of production respectively maintenance of the open character of grassland taken out of production. The year 1992 was chosen for the status quo-analysis and compared to the development of different landscape indicators related to the main and subscenarios.
According to the scenarios, 4 % - 32 % of the farmland are taken out ofproduction. Considerable changes of the ecological and socioeconomic situation are estimated. Summarized the scenario estimations of the extreme scenario II a reveal the following changes compared to the initial situation (=100%): 32 % of the farmland will be taken out of production, 20 % of the farm land will be converted to payed set-aside, 62 % of employes in agriculture will loose their job, 26 % reduction of nitrate leaching, 39 % reduction of erosion by water, 41 % reduction of erosion by wind, 11 % increase of humus content in soils, 10 % reduction of water leaching to ground water ressources, 8 % reduction of the diversity of landuse and 13 % increased nature reservation capacity of farm land. Specificdata for each of the 509 rural districts were calculated and figured in maps for the whole study area. Based on these studies the Scenario III (conversion of the whole study area to organic farming was created). This part of the studie demanded some methodological preliminary studies like the development of site adapted farming systems and the integration of the landscape specific occurrence of pests and diseases. Besides ecological consequences, the contribution of organic farming systems to the decrease of the agricultural overproduction,the maintenance of employment and the needs of building up more heterogenous landscape structures by hedges and floriferous field edges are demonstrated.