Following the adoption by the European Commission of an addition to the Delegated Regulation concerning the first standard of Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC), the National Paying Agency (NPA) is declaring the requirement for the restoration of permanent grassland to be obsolete. All agricultural operators will be notified by 20 March of the non-application of the permanent grassland restoration procedure.

The European Commission has adopted an updated delegated regulation, one of the additions of which allows Member States to opt out of the requirement to restore permanent pasture where the area to be converted to permanent pasture or where permanent pasture is to be established (i.e. (i.e. the area required to be restored to permanent pasture) does not exceed the area of permanent pasture which is registered in the Control Land Parcels (CLP) database but has not been declared in the current year.

The application of the &scaron condition in Lithuania has established that the areas of undeclared permanent grassland in the CSA database in 2023 cover the area of permanent grassland to be restored, and therefore no restoration of permanent grassland will be required in the current year.

Please note that the 5% threshold for the change in permanent grassland compared to the 2018 reference remains in place, so it is important to maintain the commitment to maintain grassland in the future and to restore grassland when it is ploughed or converted to a new use and the requirement to restore it arises.