Reducing agricultural nutrient emissions Ville Vehkasalo

2 Background  agriculture is the largest source of nutrient emissions in Finland  national water protection policy: reduce nutrient emissions from agriculture by 30% by the year 2015  in order to achieve this and other environmental goals, 300 million euros has been used to agri-environmental support annually  so far, nothing has happened: nitrogen and phosphorus emission levels are about the same as two decades ago  we set out to investigate why reducing agricultural emissions is so difficult

3 Historical trends  agricultural policy: self-sufficiency in basic products, bread grains (wheat, rye) in particular  farms in Southern Finland started to specialise in grain production, using artificial fertilisers and discarding animals  earlier all farms had some animals, whose manure was used as a fertiliser, and grass fields for pasture  now there are practically no animals in Southern Finland  the outcome: less grass cover, more erosion and more nutrient leakages

4 Historical trends: the use of artificial fertilisers

5 Present trends: livestock units / ha, 2006

6 Audit findings  agri-environmental support has been mostly income support, without any tangible effects outside the farms  due to lower market prices, profitability of farming was at stake when Finland became a member of the EU in 1995  the agri-environmental support system was developed because the combined CAP+LFA support levels were so low in Finland  the conditions for support are lenient and over 90 % of farms participate  however, the objective of the water protection policy (30% reduction) will not be achieved

7 Recommendations  support should be allocated to those fields that have a steeper slope and hence are more easily eroded  fertiliser use could be reduced even more, as the average nutrient balances are still positive, although they have been declining  we estimate that these alternative measures could be financed using current expenditure to agri-environmental support (300 million euros)  self-sufficiency would not be endangered, since currently Finland is producing far more barley and oats than it needs – surpluses are being shipped to the USA using export subsidies