EXTENSIFICATION OF AGRICULTURAL LAND-USE

The question is asked, whether the extensification of agricultural landuse is able to solve the momentanously most explosive problems of agricultural production: Following the pressure of economic frame conditions the intensity of agricultural production has risen to a degree, where continuously growing surpluses threaten the EC-budget and where severe ecological problems become apparent. Starting with clearing up the meaning of the term "agricultural landuse", the farmers' viewpoint of maximizing his profit from the use of land as a production factor and the ecological view of agricultural interference into the complex ecosystem 'landscape' are discussed and parameters for their characterisation are set up. Subsequently the term "extensification" is examined etymologically, different voices of discussion are listed, the aims of extensification as a strategy are set up, and finally a definition concerning both aspects of agricultural landuse is given and explained. Then, several extensification programmes are discussed: There are 'eco-programmes' in every state of the Federal Republic of Germany with very special aims like the preservation of endangered species, precious biotops, rare landscape. The participation in these programmes is voluntary and the conditions are attractive for the farmers. These programmes are highly flexible and adjusted to special ecological needs that they are able to achieve their goals to a high extend. However, they are of little value in terms of over-production. The new EC-extensification programme is unable to achieve neither economic nor ecological benefits. Thus it doesn't fulfill the expectations of reducing surplusses, relieving the EC-budget, and reducing the negative concomitant symptoms of modern agriculture. It's complicated in content, endowed with unattractive bounties in respect of highly productive areas, likely to disturb the still-working market for products of organic farming, narrowly limited in financial volume and consequently a failure.