Lithuania's Agri-Environment and Climate Measure — National CAP Payments for Grassland, Wetland and Climate Outcomes

Since 2015, Lithuania's Ministry of Agriculture has paid farmers under Measure 10, "Agri-Environment and Climate," part of the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020 and continued under the CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027. Payments, disbursed by the National Paying Agency (NMA) and co-financed through the EU's EAFRD fund, cover three groups of activity: extensive management of biodiversity-value grasslands (including habitat for the globally threatened aquatic warbler), preservation of endangered native Lithuanian livestock breeds, and climate-focused practices such as winter catch crops and stubble retention to cut nitrogen runoff and greenhouse-gas emissions.

The measure targeted 233,150 hectares in total, split into 147,150 ha for biodiversity/ecosystem sub-activities, 70,000 ha for GHG-reduction practices and 16,000 ha for carbon-sequestration activities. The aim was to extend grassland and wetland conservation, protect endangered livestock breeds, and reduce nitrogen runoff and greenhouse-gas emissions from farming practices.

Farmers enrolled in extensive grassland management, including habitat protection for the aquatic warbler, preservation of endangered native livestock breeds, and climate practices such as winter catch crops and stubble retention. All area enrolled under the 'management of specific grasslands' sub-activity fell within EU-important biodiversity areas.

A 2024 peer-reviewed evaluation in the journal Agriculture found only about 60.8% of the combined target area was realized by 2022, with sharply uneven uptake: catch-crop measures overshot their target by roughly 6.5 times, while the grassland/ecosystem-restoration priority area reached only about a third of plan. Two independent assessments — the peer-reviewed academic study and a separate European Commission/EU CAP Network evaluation — estimate the measure avoided between 163.9 and 211.7 kilotonnes of CO2-equivalent and 1.4-1.8 kilotonnes of ammonia emissions over 2015-2021/2022, though the two sources use different monitoring windows and methods and were not reconciled.

The same academic evaluation noted that compensation rates became inadequate relative to farmers' costs by the end of the programming period, uptake stayed low in Lithuania's more intensive central farming regions, administrative complexity and strict sanctions discouraged enrollment, and monitoring indicators were judged insufficient to fully assess environmental impact. Even so, the measure is described as a mature, decade-long mechanism with strong institutional continuity and a formal, recurring evaluation cycle.