MoDeN

The Fertiliser Ordinance (Düngeverordnung, DüV) regulates the good practice of fertilisation in Germany and thus implements the EU Nitrate Directive. With the Nitrates Directive, the EU stipulates that good agricultural practice must be adhered to in order to reduce nitrate pollution of ground and surface waters.

The aim of the project is to optimise fertilisation on farms with very different production systems and farm organisations; and
The regulations of the DüV apply equally to all farms with more than two hectares of farmland. But the different farm structures require different approaches to integrate the regulations of the amended DüV into the production systems and farm organisations and to test and introduce further fertiliser saving options. The selection of farms from three different regions ensures that the participating farms reflect the whole range of vegetable producing farms, especially in terms of farm size, type and variety of products and marketing channels.
The participating regions are:
Knoblauchsland with very small-scale structures and a high proportion of direct marketing,
the Vorderpfalz with very large farm structures and indirect marketing,
the Lower Rhine with medium-sized farms and predominantly indirect sales (comprehensive, cross-farm cost-benefit analysis).
The accompanying economic research is carried out by the Thünen Institute for Business Economics. Operational costs and benefits of N mitigation measures are assessed economically and the environmental benefits quantified, among other things, by drawing up N balances.

Project website with further information and links:  https://moden.igzev.de/de/