Gheorghe Cristian Popescu
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crop diversification, ecological focus area, environment, European Common Agricultural Policy, greening measures.
The current European Union Common Agricultural Policy 2014 – 2020 places particular emphasis on the implementation of environmentally friendly agricultural technologies and the preservation of spontaneous and agricultural biodiversity. In order to promote more sustainable agricultural production, the actual Common Agricultural Policy conceived three main ecological commitments applied by farmers managing 10 or more hectares of arable land. These greening measures are crop diversification, maintaining permanent grassland and declared “ecological focus areas”. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the implementation of agricultural practices beneficial for the climate and the environment in a medium-size Romanian agricultural holding. The case study was carried out in a private medium – size farm with the main activity represented by cereals crops from Olt county located in southern Romania. In order to be more environmental – friendly and to access the European funds for agriculture, farmer applied for greening direct payment in period 2016 – 2018. The culture scheme for crop diversification was the same, but proportion of crops was different. Ecological Focus Areas on the agricultural holding were represented by nitrogen-fixing crops (green peas culture). Application of green measures increased the farmland biodiversity, agricultural productivity and the level of farm income provided by direct payments.
