GAEC 5 Direct Payment System Implementation Challenges in Slovakia

The Agricultural Payments Agency (supervisory and registry authority) of the Slovak Republic has announced an erosion hazard layer to meet the requirements of GAEC5 (Minimising soil erosion. Limit soil erosion by putting in place suitable practical measures). If a farmer fails to observe the layer data, they will be fined and might lose access to direct subsidies (also known as direct payments). The layer that has been announced raises a number of questions and concerns amongst beneficiaries of direct subsidies and users of land parcels. For instance, with the Pastuchov land parcel, the uncertainties associated with the application of GAEC5 were raised. A comparison of the water erosion layer commitment for 2023 with the erosion calculated by the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) method based on the Digital Relief Model (DRM) generated from airborne laser scanning has confirmed the uniformity in all classified categories of water erosion over a 65% land parcel area. The situation of the land user has been diminished (i.e. they have to comply with GAEC5 even when there is no reason to) over 11% of the area. The situation of the land user has improved over 24% of the area (i.e. they do not have to comply with the conditions even when there is reason to). This paper describes the problems and outlines the possibilities for the necessary adjustment of compliance with the GAEC5 conditions in Slovakia.