Groundwater Protection Strategies for Organic Farming Systems (2001-2007)

• IGLU, Engineering Association for Agriculture and Environment - Göttingen; Jan-Cord Fuhrmann (http://www.iglu-goettingen.de)
• Bioland Landesverband Niedersachsen/Bremen e.V., (C. Schäfer), Visselhövede(http://www.bioland.de)
• Landberatung Niedersachsen GmbH, Ökoring field office (C. Mayer), Walsrode(http://www.oekoring.de)

PROLAND Lower Saxony

2001 until 2007

• Manfred Szerencsits
• Jürgen Heß

Agriculture is one of the main contributors to groundwater pollution. Previous measures to reduce water pollution in water protection areas within the framework of conventional farming have slightly improved the situation, but have proven to be costly and difficult to control. In contrast, organic farming is characterized by its system-inherent striving for closed nutrient cycles and is the most consistently implemented concept of sustainable land use with high macroeconomic efficiency. However, in spite of its target conformity with water management, there are so far only few projects in which the conversion to organic farming could be successfully promoted. The aim of this work is to integrate organic farming into area-based water protection and to develop recommendations for targeted conversion promotion in water protection areas. In the first part of the paper, groundwater protection projects in which organic farming was promoted are analyzed. The focus of the analysis is on the strategies for promoting organic farming. It is determined whether all significant aspects (economic, social, political, etc.) were considered in the project design and whether appropriate solutions were found. In addition, it will be investigated to what extent the agricultural structure and other framework conditions that cannot be changed in the project context limit the success of the projects. Thus, recommendations for the integration of organic farming into water conservation strategies can be derived. In the second part of the thesis the gained knowledge will be applied to the design of a water protection project in Lower Saxony (http://www.h2oe.de/) and the project implementation will be accompanied and evaluated. A central element is the survey of farmers regarding their evaluation of the project, as well as their attitude towards and the conditions for conversion to organic farming. The cooperation in the project team allows on the one hand to explore the problem contexts with greater depth and to check the recommendations from the first part of the work especially with regard to their practicability and on the other hand to initiate the transfer into the water protection practice.