Kriterien umweltverträglicher Landbewirtschaftung (KUL) : ein Verfahren zur ökologischen Bewertung von Landwirtschaftsbetrieben

This paper presents an appraisal system which on the basis of 20 criteria enables to describe the environmental state and sustainablility of different farm enterprises and land farm operations. The procedure identifies the most significant risk potentials and sets ranges of their tolerability. By this way the farmers can recognize principal shortcomings of their management and start countermeasures to cope with them. An environmentally sound and sustainable agriculture is defined as a way of farming which uses the available ressources as efficiently as possible, but at the same time keeps undesirable impacts on soils, water, air and biota within acceptable limits. Several years' investigations on more than 100 different farms in 11 German States have shown that there is no clear-cut relationship between the environmental shortcomings found and specific site or structural farming conditions. In particular there is no convincing proof for the assumption that the intensity of farming is generally responsible for the extent of adverse effects. Non-tolerable impacts on the environment are almost exclusively due to the way of farm management and may therefore be avoided by a better knowledge of the local situation and by an aim-oriented advice.