What impact will the rearrangement of animal-related direct payments have?

Politically there is a broad consensus that the clearer orientation of the direct payment system towards the objectives of agricultural policy is a sensible aspect of the current reform process. However, there is disagreement as to whether the formerly animal-related contributions, as proposed in the communication on the agricultural policy 2014−2017 (AP 14−17, Federal Council 2012), should be changed to area and transferred to so-called security of supply contributions. Model calculations with SILAS and SWISSland show that such a shift would not only protect natural resources but would therefore also increase the average agricultural income by four percent.