A long-term economic comparison of good agricultural practice and integrated farming - an approach in light of the aims of pesticide reduction

For many years now, agriculture has been required to reduce its production intensity. The national programme to reduce pesticide use, launched by the German government, is one of the most recent demands in this regard. Here, integrated pest management and its elements are mentioned several times as effective instruments to reduce the use of pesticides. A large-scale arable farming system experiment, comparing a system of good farming practice and a system of integrated farming for a period of thirteen years, is evaluated with a view to reducing the pesticide input. Cost-performance comparisons are conducted on the basis of marginal costing and data is presented as time series. On a high-yielding site, located in a floodplain in Lower Saxony, integrated fanning can almost compete with good fanning practice. On a hilly site, where soil conditions are less favourable, integrated fanning results in a contribution margin difference of around 150 euro per hectare and year. Taking winter wheat and winter oilseed rape, these crops had been grown annually in the crop rotation patterns of both systems, as an example, different structures of production costs are pointed out. Apart from the crop yields, crop protection exerts the greatest influence on the profitability and the development over time of a cropping system. Pesticide use has steadily increased in oilseed rape cultivation over time. This applies especially to the integrated farming system where weed control has become a greater problem. In integrated winter wheat production, plant protection could be maintained at a low level over the years. By decreasing the fungicide input, wheat, that was cultivated in line with good farming practice, increasingly led to lower production costs. Two methods of calculating gross margins were used: i\) annual calculation of current prices and subsidies and ii\) fixed prices and subsidies on the basis of 2002. The future economic performance of integrated farming can thus be estimated after the Luxembourg agreements on the reform of the EU agricultural policy have been implemented. The pros and cons of the implementation of integrated farming as an agri-environmental scheme are discussed.