Soil cover: drought exemption for the 2026 agricultural campaign

Farmers whose plots are located in an area recognized as being in drought will not be required, for the 2026 campaign, to have soil vegetative cover. Decree No. 2026-991 of October 23, 2026, issued by the Minister of Agriculture, Agri-Food and Food Sovereignty and published in the Official Journal of the French Republic on October 25, 2026 (JORF No. 0250), exempts them under the standard relating to good agricultural and environmental conditions of the soil, known as GAEC 6. An order of the same day, published in the same issue, defines the precise scope of this derogation.

A standard linked to the conditionality of aid

GAEC 6 requires minimum soil cover during sensitive periods; it conditions the payment of Common Agricultural Policy aid via the conditionality mechanism. The second paragraph of Article D. 614-50 of the Rural and Maritime Fishing Code constitutes its regulatory basis, and Article D. 614-44 of the same code designates the aid beneficiaries subject to these requirements.

Failures are penalized by graduated aid reductions, set by the Order of August 31, 2026 (AGRT2621826A), published in JORF No. 0217 on September 17, 2026. Outside vulnerable zones, the national scale provides notably for:

• for arable land other than fallow, failure to maintain soil cover for six weeks between September 1 and November 30 during long intercropping: reduction of 3% upon the first finding, 9% upon the second finding over three years;
• for fallow land, failure to meet the sowing deadline or the existence of spontaneous cover by May 31, as well as the absence of six weeks of cover between September 1 and November 30 for plots maintained in place or hosting a spring crop in 2026: the same rates of 3% and 9%;
• for plots with fruit, vine, or hop crops, between removal and replanting, the absence of vegetative cover by May 31: 5% upon the first finding, 15% upon the second.

The perimeter established by the implementing order

The Order of October 23, 2026 (AGRT2627207A) applies Article 1 of the decree. The derogation is open to the beneficiaries of Article D. 614-44 for their plots located:

• outside zones vulnerable to nitrate pollution, as defined in Article R. 211-77 of the Environmental Code;
• in the mainland departments and in Corsica;
• excluding the departments of Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhône, Hautes-Alpes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, and Alpes-Maritimes.

Five departments in the South-East are therefore excluded from the scheme, as well as all plots classified as nitrate-vulnerable zones.

Exemption under the decree, option under the order

The decree establishes the principle: by way of derogation from the second paragraph of Article D. 614-50, beneficiaries “are not required” to have vegetative cover on parcels located in a zone determined based on the state of soil drought, with this zone being referred to an order from the minister in charge of agriculture. The implementing order, for its part, uses the language of optionality: operators “may derogate” from the obligation, within the geographical limits it enumerates.

The text contains neither a deferred entry-into-force clause nor a time limit: it applies to the 2026 campaign of the common agricultural policy, and its Article 2 is limited to providing for its publication in the Official Journal.

What remains unchanged

Other conditionality standards are not affected: the maintenance of permanent grasslands (GAEC 1), the protection of wetlands and peatlands (GAEC 2), the management of soil tillage (GAEC 5), and the rotation or diversification of arable land (GAEC 7) continue to apply according to the grids of the order of August 31, 2026. In nitrate-vulnerable zones, soil cover remains governed by regional action programs, with the national grid explicitly targeting the derogations they provide.

For the affected farms, the stake is direct: for the 2026 campaign, parcels covered by the mechanism escape the ground for non-compliance derived from the absence of vegetative cover and the associated aid reductions, which range from 3% to 15% depending on the finding and the type of parcel. Operators established in the five excluded departments or whose parcels are classified as vulnerable zones remain subject to the obligation and its sanctions.

Source: Official Journal of the French Republic, JORF No. 0250 of October 25, 2026 — Decree No. 2026-991 of October 23, 2026 (NOR AGRT2626454D) and Order of October 23, 2026 (NOR AGRT2627207A).