Direct payment

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Direct payments are direct monetary payments by the state to farmers with the aim of allowing them to participate in the general development of prosperity and income, as defined, for example, in the German Agriculture Act . They replaced production-related subsidies after the Uruguay Round to the General Tariff and Trade Agreement decided to abolish them.

Structure and content of direct payments

Direct payments are not product-related subsidies and as such are linked to specific (changing) conditions . Direct payments are made by all western industrial nations.

In addition to direct payments to compensate for location disadvantages and management difficulties, e.g. B. in the mountain area (slope allowance), there are direct payments for "voluntarily" rendered services (e.g. summer contributions ). Direct payments are a central control instrument of agricultural policy . There are general direct payments (in principle not differentiated according to use or area) and ecological direct payments (linked to specific measures).

The ecological direct payments are intended to create incentives for ecological management. They are far less controversial than the general direct payments because they compensate for a service that large parts of the population also want. In some cases, however, the waiver of excessive pollution of the soil and groundwater with harmful fertilizers is compensated. In other production sectors (e.g. heavy industry), certain minimum ecological requirements are stipulated by law without the producers being entitled to compensation payments. The agricultural economy in all developed industrial nations is characterized by the subsidy system and strong protectionism .

Since 2005, direct payments in the EU have been linked to an extensive catalog of environmental, nature and animal welfare obligations. These obligations, referred to as cross compliance , are checked with unannounced controls and can lead to noticeable reductions in payments if violations are proven.

Direct payments are one of the central elements of agricultural policy . They enable a separation of price and income policy and of production and earnings. Farmers receive money from the state for certain services, e.g. B. the maintenance of the cultural landscape , the preservation of natural resources, a contribution to decentralized settlement or the production of renewable raw materials ( energy plant bonus ), but also area contributions that farmers receive for the simple reason that they cultivate agricultural land.

In addition, those farmers who are particularly committed to environmental and animal welfare receive additional direct payments (in Switzerland e.g. according to the Eco Quality Ordinance , ÖQV). These additional payments, which are tied to strict ecological requirements, represent a negligibly small part in relation to the direct payments. Their control effect is therefore also controversial.

Criticism of direct payments

The handling of agricultural policy in the West is strongly criticized by many developing countries. Especially in the primary sector, developing countries would have a good opportunity to participate in the global economy due to the low factor costs (land, labor). Instead, they are systematically excluded from this area.

The distribution system of direct payments (a total of 4.1 billion Swiss francs ) is also controversial in Switzerland because it must be assumed that a significant proportion of the contributions (approx. 900 million Swiss francs) do not go directly to agriculture, but rather directly or indirectly to downstream operations, from the administration, from consultants or from agricultural research institutes. The direct payment model is currently being reconsidered in Switzerland and new control strategies are being introduced. Internally , this process is referred to as " further development of direct payments, WDZ ".

Biodiversity contributions in Switzerland (represent only part of the direct payments)

In Switzerland , farmers receive the following annual contributions for certain ecological compensation areas (selection):

  • extensively used meadows
Valley zone : 1080 CHF / ha ; Hill zone : 860 CHF / ha, mountain zone I & II 500 CHF / ha, mountain zone III & IV: 450 CHF / ha
  • little intensively used meadows
all zones: 450 CHF / ha
Valley zone: 1440 CHF / ha; Hill zone: 1220 CHF / ha, mountain zone I & II 860 CHF / ha, mountain zone III & IV: 680 CHF / ha
all zones: 2300 CHF / ha
all zones: 3800 CHF / ha
all zones: 3300 CHF / ha
all zones: 13.50 CHF / tree
  • Hedges , field and riparian trees
all zones: 2160 CHF / ha

history

In Switzerland, agricultural policy has developed strongly in the direction of protectionism since the First World War , from which the country was spared but had to struggle with food shortages . A first step was the grain order of 1929. It obliged the federal government to take over good domestic grain at an attractive price set by the Federal Council, which was intended to encourage cultivation. The federal government paid the grain farmers a high price and sold the grain at a significantly lower import price; the difference was covered by tax revenues. After the Second World War, which was largely shaped by the Wahlen plan , the self-sufficiency planned economy was further strengthened with the revised economic articles of 1947 and the agricultural law based on it : for milk and dairy products, for example, quantitative import restrictions could now be decreed if necessary, or the cheaper import prices could be subject to a customs surcharge .

After the end of the Cold War , when the military threat and with it the need for good self-sufficiency eased, the political pressure to cut the "high-price island" Switzerland increased steadily. Product subsidies were increasingly being replaced by direct payments, which not only satisfied consumer interests, but also tried to meet the WTO's tariff dismantling demands and the greening requirement.

In 2017, around 2.8 billion francs were paid to over 45,000 companies in Switzerland - an average of 54,000 francs. Almost 6,000 businesses received more than 100,000 francs. In 7145 companies (around 16%) the direct payments were cut in the same year due to various violations; in every second case it was about animal welfare or animal welfare .

Current developments

In November 2008, the EU agriculture ministers agreed that farmers would receive ten percent fewer direct payments from 2013. More massive cuts by the EU Commission could not be implemented. Germany published the last country of the European Union after the deadline the data EU - subsidy recipients in the field of agriculture , including the data of direct payments to farmers . Only Bavaria temporarily refused. In November 2010 the European Court of Justice ruled that the publication of EU subsidy recipients in the agricultural sector in the previous form violated EU law. Data protection had not been sufficiently taken into account in the past, and the publication of the names of the recipients of aid and their amount on the Internet was disproportionate. As a result, the publication was suspended until the regulations were revised. In 2015, the information was published again from the 2014 subsidy year. For the first time, individual recipients of agricultural aid are also named. Among the recipients are small farmers, energy companies and European slaughterhouses.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SR 910.13 Ordinance of 23 October 2013 on Direct Payments to Agriculture (Direct Payments Ordinance, DZV). In: admin.ch , accessed on March 31, 2020.
  2. ↑ Keystone-SDA : Federal government cuts direct payments for over 7,000 farmers In: bauernzeitung.ch, September 16, 2018, accessed on September 16, 2018.
  3. ↑ Tagesschau: Ten percent less EU agricultural subsidies for farmers
  4. ↑ Zeit: Agricultural subsidies: EU initiates proceedings against Germany
  5. ↑ ECJ overturns publication of agricultural subsidies
  6. ↑ Publication suspended by EU grant recipients
  7. ↑ Agro-Fishery Payments: Search ( Memento of the original from June 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.agrar-fischerei-lösungen.de
  8. ↑ EurActiv.de: Agricultural subsidies - List of German recipients 2014

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