The debate over whether farmers should be forced to leave fields fallow pits clean water against food supplies
Environmentalists are alarmed over a 50 percent decline in the amount of farmland set aside as fallow. An additional 82000 hectares of farmland has been ploughed up and sowed this year according to new statistics from the Veterinary and Food Administration.
The increase comes after the suspension of an EU requirement that paid farmers a subsidy for not growing anything on about 10 percent of their land. The regulation was implemented in 1992 in order to eliminate a glut of agricultural products but was temporarily ended last year over concerns that the policy was driving up grain prices.
With the elimination of the regulation the government predicted that farmers would cultivate an additional 25000 to 50000 hectares of land.
In addition to remaining fallow the fields must also remain unfertilised and may not be sprayed with pesticides. Fallow fields also serve as habitats for wildlife.
Troels Lund Poulsen the environment minister called the development 'troubling' and said he was prepared to introduce legislation that would set up the country's own mandatory set-asides in order to protect watersheds from pollution.
The cultivation of an extra 50000 hectares is estimated to contribute an additional 3500 tonnes of nitrogen to the atmosphere. Environmental Protection Agency statistics also point to an increased use of pesticides.
Peter Gemælke head of the Danish Agriculture Council argued that with skyrocketing food prices and shortages many places in the world it was more important to grow as much food as necessary.
'I don't understand why we can't grow more when there's a lack of food and children are dying of hunger' he told Politiken newspaper.
Growing more food he added could be done in a sustainable manner if farmers were permitted to use more fertiliser. In the past he has also suggested that Denmark's restrictions on genetically modified crops and set-asides be relaxed.