Towards Green Agriculture and Sustainable Development: Pro-Environmental Activity of Farms under the Common Agricultural Policy

Growing environmental and climate problems in the contemporary world necessitate the search for efficient solutions, including changes in agriculture, which has been reflected in the new package of reforms of the EU climate policy, called the European Green Deal (the EGD). Agriculture and rural areas play an essential role in the attainment of the EGD goals, and one of the prerequisites for an effective implementation of the EGD assumptions is to recognize the mechanism underlying the activity of agricultural farms in the scope of pro-environmental measures implemented under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This article presents an endeavour to make a multidimensional evaluation of the spatial diversification in such activities, using Polish farms as an example. Compared to other EU member states, Poland is a country where agriculture remains a substantial sector in the national economy. This research is based on data from several institutions, including the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARMA), responsible for the allocation of funds from the EU budget and for providing support to the development of agriculture and rural areas. The level and structure of the absorption of funds from the CAP underwent analysis, including three pro-environmental measures of the Rural Development Programme: organic farming (OF), agri-environment climate measure (AECM), and afforestation and creation of forest areas (ACFA). In order to achieve a holistic approach to these measures, an innovative analytical model was developed. It can be applied to analyses on a regional, national, and European level, and it is based on several novel indicators, as well as advanced statistical and spatial analyses. The research demonstrates that the pro-environment activities of farmers are characterized by a significant geographical diversity. The most active in soliciting payments from the CAP were agricultural farms with a high level of pro-environment internal characteristics of agriculture (IPEAF = 30.1%, with national average = 11.6%). With regard to anthropogenic determinants, relatively higher values of the IPEAF indicator were found in the municipalities with a lower level of socio-economic development (12.1%) and those located in northern and western Poland, within the borders of the former Prussian Partition (18.6%), characterised by higher farming culture. The research results imply that the effectiveness of the up-to-date solutions needs to be improved, also by taking into consideration the endogenous conditions and potential of individual territorial units. The research results also prove the expediency of implementing the European Green Deal. Conducting an analysis of the pro-environmental activity of farms, taking into account both the applications of the current CAP financial perspective and those resulting from follow-up activities regarding the previous perspective, is an innovative approach to the issue.