Der Bauer, ein Umweltsünder?
Subsidies are seen as a driver of climate change.
In the spring of 2017, a European Union working group of environmentalists, academics and lobbyists was having a technical discussion on green farming practices when a map appeared on an overhead screen. The room froze.
The map juxtaposed pollution in northern Italy with the European Union subsidies paid to farmers in the region. The undeniable overlap invited a fundamental question: Is the European Union financing the very environmental problems it is trying to solve?
The map was expunged from the group’s final reports, those in attendance say. But using the European Union’s economic models, The New York Times created an approximation that confirms what officials did not want seen: The most heavily subsidized areas had the worst pollution.
Last month, European leaders set ambitious goals to fight climate change and save species from extinction. Yet one of the biggest impediments is the bloc’s $65-billion-a-year agricultural subsidy program that is intended to support farmers. And recent investigations by The Times show that it is administered by officials who benefit from the payments.
The farm subsidies have had serious environmental consequences. Decaying algae belches deadly gas onto beaches. Dwindling bird populations threaten entire ecosystems. Greenhouse gas emissions are on the
rise. And in the Baltic Sea, decades of farm runoff have created huge dead zones.
The question now is whether European policymakers will confront the contradictions in the program or hide them from public view, as with the map in 2017.
“That map said, ‘There’s a problem. Let’s look at how to solve the problem,’ ” said Faustine Bas-Defossez, an environmental activist who attended the meeting. “But they didn’t want to talk about it.”
‘Adverse Effects’ on Animals
To assess Europe’s biodiversity crisis, look to the gray partridge — if you can find one. It is what scientists call an indicator species, a sign of a healthy balance between humans and nature. Yet in less than three decades, the partridge population in the Netherlands has fallen more than 90 percent. Britain has had similar declines.
“We are talking about a collapse,” said Frans van Alebeek, an ecologist with BirdLife Netherlands, a wildlife protection group.
The vast beauty of today’s European farms is misleading. Butterflies are vanishing and insects are dying off, threatening to unravel the food web that supports life. Partridges were once ubiquitous, nesting in tall hedges where chicks fed on seeds and insects. But for years farmers have cleared more land to maximize profits and qualify for more subsidies, replacing hedges, flowers and tall grass with crops. The heavy use of fertilizer and pesticides has left partridges and other birds without food.
European Union officials have known for nearly two decades about the dire consequences of agricultural policy on wildlife. In 2004, scientists released two reports that blamed farm subsidies for a decline in bird populations and “severe adverse effects on farmland biodiversity.” Internal reports were equally gloomy. A 2004 document predicted that farmland wildlife would decline once new European Union members became eligible for subsidies. Studies have shown those predictions to be correct.
In 2011, the European bloc set a goal of halting and reversing species decline by this year. Officials approved a policy requiring farmers to set aside small plots for grassland or hedges. But under pressure from lob
Milan Schreuer and Joanna Berendt contributed reporting. byists, the law was changed to allow farmers to grow crops on these plots.
“In theory, a lot has been accomplished,” said Ann van Doorn of Wageningen University in the Netherlands who has documented the links between farm subsidies and a decline in bird and insect life. “In reality, it’s so disappointing.”
Mr. van Alebeek, the Dutch ecologist, is working with colleagues and local officials to rent small portions of farmland in North Brabant, one of the most intensive farming regions in the Netherlands. They add hedges, flowers and other features. Partridge populations on these farms have largely stabilized, Mr. van Alebeek said, while insect life has increased.
It would take little from the farm budget to institute these kinds of changes across Europe, he said. Even so, the European Union is expected to fall well short of its biodiversity goals this year. Its own report card recently found “no significant progress.”
Adding to Climate Change
Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are rising, reversing years of declines, according to European Union data. Farming accounts for about 10 percent of Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions. A significant share of that comes from farm animals that burp out methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Fertilizers contribute by releasing nitrous oxide. Decaying manure releases methane and ammonia.
Some subsidies, like those that directly support livestock farming, are making things worse, according to a report prepared for the European
Commission. It said that environmental measures in the farm bill were unlikely to significantly reduce emissions.
This was echoed by a progress report published last month showing that the European Union would probably miss emissions goals for 2050.
“Time is running out to come up with credible responses to bend the trend,” the European Environment Agency said.
Countries that try to cut farming emissions contend with fierce resistance. Last year, Dutch lawmakers proposed halving the number of livestock in order to reduce emissions. Farmers responded by clogging the streets of The Hague with tractors.
“This is the reality we live in and in which decisions are made,” said Janez Potocnik, a former European environment commissioner who pushed unsuccessfully for tighter restrictions on pollutants. “I tried to make changes, and I was always told, ‘You can’t do this.’ ”
Toxins From Farm Runoff
On the beaches of northwestern France, a man’s body was pulled from a pile of green slime. A rider was discovered unconscious beside his dead horse. A beach worker slipped into a coma, and a jogger fatally collapsed.
The reason seemed obvious to Pierre Philippe, an emergency room doctor. Every summer, algae coats the beaches of Brittany with bright green goo. As it decomposes, it gives off hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas that can kill in seconds.
Dr. Philippe tried for years to persuade government officials to acknowledge the threat, or even discuss it. They refused.
Brittany produces more than half of France’s pork and a quarter of its dairy cattle. Livestock manure is spread onto the wheat and cornfields, which exist almost solely to feed the animals. That has left Brittany with France’s largest concentration of nitrogen.
Those nitrates are food for green algae: Runoff from regional farms contaminates seawater and contributes to ever bigger algal blooms.
André Ollivro remembers asking health officials about it more than a decade ago. “Kids were playing near the algae and they were getting sick,” said Mr. Ollivro, 74. Soon, the rotting heaps of algae were so high they blocked access to the beach.
Officials told him that he and his neighbors were to blame. “They said it was from washing machines, phosphates from the laundry,” he said.
Edwige Kerbouriou, a representative of Brittany’s agricultural chamber, acknowledged that, for years, officials and farmers did not accept any link between agricultural practices and the green glop washing ashore.
Years of lawsuits and political pressure have forced lawmakers and industry leaders to recognize the connection. Tougher nitrate laws have forced changes in fertilization practices, and nitrate runoff has declined. But pollution levels remain high, and most of the region’s bays are not on track to meet environmental targets, officials said.
Environmental officials say that addressing nitrate pollution will require farmers to make new investments and accept lower production levels. Farmers have said they will not accept regulations that cut into their profits.
For now, officials in Brittany dispatch equipment to haul away algae before it can rot and become toxic. And when the problem becomes overwhelming, as it did last summer, officials fence off the beaches and post warning signs.
Dead Zones on the Seafloor
One morning in November, Daniel Rak, an oceanographer, watched as his colleagues on the research ship Oceania lowered cameras and a sensor to the floor of the Baltic Sea.
When the instruments resurfaced, Mr. Rak ducked into an onboard laboratory and confirmed his suspicions: His ship was in a dead zone.
The Baltic is one of the world’s most polluted seas. The excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the sea nourish algae. When the algae die, they are decomposed by bacteria that deplete oxygen.
Large swaths of the Baltic have become dead zones, without enough oxygen for most marine life to survive. It may take nearly 200 years before parts of the Baltic Sea are restored to a healthy status, according to the European Environment Agency.
Poland, the Baltic’s biggest polluter, is also the fifth biggest recipient of European subsidy money, after France, Spain, Germany and Italy. Polish officials deny any correlation, and the country’s deputy minister of agriculture, Ryszard Zarudzki, said that the subsidies “impose on the farmers legal obligation to comply with environmental standards.”
But more recently, Poland’s government has begun taking action. In 2018, the government acknowledged that farms were polluting Poland’s water.
A new directive limited how much fertilizer farmers could use and when they could use it. Farmers are now required to store manure and slurry in leakproof silos for half the year.
The new policies have not impressed farmers in Greater Poland Province, which has a large number of livestock farms. Several criticized the requirements as bureaucratic intrusions from Brussels.
For decades, the European Union wanted to produce ever more food and profits. Today, it wants to encourage environmental reform. So far, doing both at the same time has proved impossible.
“If you are rewarded for destroying the environment, you will destroy it,” said Mr. Potocnik, the former environmental commissioner. “Because why the hell not.”