Mr. Patrick Barrett:

I will follow up on what has been said in the last two contributions. The Directorate-General for the Environment also supports a type of system the purpose of which is not so much to separate out high nature value farming areas or areas of high biodiversity from areas of high agricultural production. We see this system, as it has been described, working such that we can characterise agricultural land as having different possibilities, including possibilities to provide services. Let us link this back to the provision of information and knowledge services. One thing we really need to be able to inform the farmer about is information. We believe it is essential to have knowledge of the services that ecosystems can provide. We know a process is being undertaken as part of the European Union biodiversity 2020 strategy, which has been translated into member state strategies, to gather up this type of information. This information allows us to understand the environment in totality and, within that, to understand what ecosystem services can be provided, such as, for example, the provision of food. However, it also allows us to understand how to regulate services dealing with air, soil, water, climate and the possibility for cultural services. When we understand this and have all this information, we can then understand the trade-offs that are necessary and the ability to increase production in land suitable for intensified production. Furthermore, we can see that there may be places where it is more suitable to provide regulatory or cultural services. The administration and the people involved in managing agriculture at least have all this information at hand and, therefore, they have the ability to make the decisions and trade-offs that are needed. This relates back to Deputy Pringle's question as well as the overall question on how to sustainably intensify production on land, as called for in the Food Harvest 2020 policy.