Standards on good agricultural and environmental conditions of land

Cross-compliance is an important tool for integrating environmental requirements into the Common Agricultural Policy. It ensures that support granted to farmers contributes to promoting sustainable agriculture and the environmental objectives of the European Union.In other words, environmental cross-compliance requirements make sure that public money is paid for farming that serves public policy objectives and promotes the provision of environmentally related public goods and services. Environmental cross-compliance is made up of:1. Statutory management requirements, which are a selected number of obligations incorporated in the scope of cross-compliance rules from existing European Union environmental directives and regulations. Statutory management requirements are agricultural management standards (provisions) drawn from the application of relevant articles of these directives and regulations.2. Standards on good agricultural and environmental condition of land, abbreviated as “GAEC.” This publication focuses solely on GAEC.