Agricultural Land Evaluation Considering the Czech Less Favoured Areas Delineation

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of the common European criteria on the Less Favoured Areas (LFA) delineation in the Czech Republic (CR) and compares it with currently used point evaluation system. Further, it compares the advantages and disadvantages of both delineation systems from various points of view and concerning the needs of common agricultural policies. In the Czech Republic, a system of point evaluation of the agricultural land productivity based on the Evaluated soil-ecological units (ESEU) is used for delineation of the other than mountain LFA since 2001. Within the programme period 2014–2020, the European Commission proposes to delineate the other than mountain LFA using a single set of criteria, common for all the member states. Some criteria of the natural handicap proposed by the European Commission (EC) can be derived directly from the ESEU five-cipher code and from the soil maps. The comparison clearly shows that the current Czech system of point evaluation of the productivity of agricultural land can express better the influence of worse soil and climatic conditions on the limitations of the agricultural use of the land than the system proposed by the EC. Additionally, the ESEU point evaluation can express also the effect of simultaneous influence of more factors, which may thus increase or decrease the final ESEU point values. Conversely, it is necessary to remark that the land quality evaluation based on ESEU is rather complicated and not easily understandable for the wide public. Also, it cannot be applied in all the EU countries.