Leipzig’s point system for leasing municipal farmland: transparent selection that rewards sustainable farming [Practice Abstract]
How can we incentivise the transition towards agroecology? Beyond the domain addressed by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), there are many other opportunities and actors who can take action.
One example is provided by the city of Leipzig (Germany), which owns around ~1,800 ha of agricultural land within the 10,000 ha of its municipality. A dialogue among stakeholders, including scientists from UFZ, focused on a renewal of leasing conditions to implement a point system based on sustainability criteria.
Members of Agroecology-TRANSECT demonstrated how different perspectives of agroecology can be translated into different points (and indicators), and achieve greater acceptance across societal and political sectors.
Criteria include:
Prohibiting the use of genetically modified seeds as well as sewage sludge or compost
Requiring a sustainability assessment; participation in the ‘Agriculture and City’ working
group
Support for young farmers
Measures to reduce pesticide use
Support for organic farming
Consideration of the farmer’s origin (e.g., local/regional ties)
In October 2023, the city approved its point-system approach for allocating new leasing contracts. Farmers are further incentivised to adopt whole-farm measures, beyond the area owned by the city. This approach, if proven successful, can serve as a blueprint for other cities and landowners to adopt (and hence, a means to scale out local successes); or serve as a demonstration case for the CAP to adopt.
To follow the implementation of the concept, UFZ colleagues are accompanying the dialogue onward, and the city of Leipzig now serves as a case study in the LAFERIA project.
Geographical location: City of Leipzig (Saxony), Germany
Find out more (in German): Leasing of municipal agricultural land – Stadt Leipzig
Keywords: Low input farming, Organic Agriculture, Socio economic resilience, Transdisciplinary research
Country: Germany, EU
