Environmental Sustainability Requirements:
- Cross-compliance rules; restrictions in 'ecological focus areas', and crop diversification.
- Greening: maintenance of permanent grassland; ensuring an “ecological focus area” of at least 5% of the arable area of the holding for most farms with an arable area larger than 15 hectares – i.e. field margins, hedges, trees, fallow land, landscape features, biotopes, buffer strips, afforested area. This figure may rise to 7% after a Commission report in 2017 and subject to a legislative proposal.