Land of opportunities: Aligning organic farming and conservation targets in Europe

The European Green Deal provides for two targets by 2030: 1) the strict protection of at least 10% of the European Union’s land area and 2) the expansion of organic farming to 25% of agricultural land. To address these independent objectives competing for land use, we construct a spatially explicit partial equilibrium model that fulfills both targets either consecutively or simultaneously and at an EU or national level. Results indicate that the 25% organic farming target is the restricting constraint with high marginal costs, leading to less cropland use, higher land prices and higher farming revenues. Less than 1% of cropland area in the EU is needed to fulfill the strict protection target. Therefore, both targets can be fulfilled without major conflicts over cropland use. While targets at the EU level lead to better resource utilization and significantly lower price effects, the uneven distribution of additional strictly protected area and organically managed cropland between countries could be perceived as unfair and should be compensated. Half of the newly strictly protected areas are re-designations of already protected area. Thus, a comprehensive approach that combines expansion with proper management of protected areas is crucial to achieving conservation goals.