Problems of attribution of information in the field of agriculture to environmental information

Ignat'eva Inna Anatol'evna Doctor of Law Professor of the Department of Environmental and Land Law of the Law Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University, Doctor of Law 119991, Russia, Moscow, Leninskie Gory str., 1 land@law.msu.ru

Environmental protection and agriculture are related areas of legal regulation, closely interrelated and mutually dependent. According to the researchers, agrarian law as a whole has an ecological function ^{[1, p. 54]}. A number of laws regulating relations in the field of agriculture emphasize their environmental orientation. Thus, Federal Law No. 264-FZ of December 29, 2006 "On the Development of Agriculture" (Federal Law of the Russian Federation. 2007. No. 1 (Part 1). Article 27) one of the main goals of the state agrarian policy is the preservation and reproduction of natural resources used for agricultural production (Article 5). The stipulated by this law, state support for measures to increase the fertility of land, the protection of agricultural land is normatively linked to the implementation of state policy focused, among other areas, on ensuring ecological balance, protection of agricultural land (Article 13 of the Federal Law "On the Development of Agriculture").

The environmental situation must be taken into account by federal executive authorities in the field of safe handling of pesticides and agrochemicals when determining the procedure for the use of these chemicals in accordance with Article 22 of Federal Law No. 109-FZ of July 19, 1997 "On Safe Handling of Pesticides and Agrochemicals" (RF Federal Law No. 29. St. 3510).

As follows from Article 2 of Federal Law No. 280-FZ of August 3, 2018 "On Organic Products and on Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" (NW RF. 2018. No. 32 (Part I). Article 5073), organic products are understood primarily as environmentally friendly agricultural products (as well as the corresponding raw materials and food), while organic agriculture is associated with ensuring a favorable state of the environment, strengthening human health, preserving and restoring soil fertility. According to Article 4 of Federal Law No. 159-FZ of June 11, 2021 "On agricultural products, raw materials and food with improved characteristics" (RF Federal Law No. 24 (Part 1). Article 4177), in the field of handling of these agricultural products, the rules for application in its production occupy an important place agro-industrial and other technologies that meet the established environmental and other requirements and have minimal negative impact on the environment.

In turn, the environmental and legal regulation defines the scope of requirements in the field of environmental protection in the implementation of activities in the field of agriculture, land reclamation, the use of chemicals in agriculture (Articles 42, 43, 49 of the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection"). Environmental law also contains rules on the protection of the environment from negative biological effects (Article 50 of the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection") concerning the cultivation and breeding of plants and animals, as well as on the protection of the green fund of rural settlements (Article 61 of the same law).

Information and information support are among the most important joint issues in the areas of legal regulation and related activities under consideration. Thus, information occupies an essential place in the legal regulation of relations in the field of agriculture. The availability of information on the state of the state agrarian policy is one of the principles of this policy, according to Article 5 of the Federal Law "On the Development of Agriculture". Information support for agricultural producers and other market participants of agricultural products, raw materials and food, as well as the provision of consulting assistance to them, is designated as a measure of implementation of the state agrarian policy; information support is also considered as a separate direction of state support for the development of agriculture, sustainable development of rural areas (Articles 6, 7 of the said law). In general, Article 17 of the Federal Law "On the Development of Agriculture" provides for the creation of a system of state information support in the field of agriculture and provides for its functioning.

At the same time, some of the information in the field of agriculture on specific types of information and indicators relates to environmental information. We believe that the question of the correlation of information that is officially designated as environmental and related types of information, including those relevant to agriculture, is directly related to the issue of openness of relevant information, ensuring freedom of access to them. These rules are unambiguously fixed first of all in Article 42 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation (which places information on the state of the environment at the highest level in importance), and also received detailed development in Article 4.3 of Federal Law No. 7-FZ of January 10, 2002 "On Environmental Protection" (NW RF. 2002. No. 2. Article 133).

According to the definition introduced in the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection" in 2021, information on the state of the environment (environmental information) is certain information about the environment, and in particular about the environmental impact of ongoing and planned economic and other activities. At the same time, agriculture is undoubtedly one of the activities affecting the environment. As follows from Article 1 of the Federal Law "On the Development of Agriculture", agriculture is an economic activity for the production of agricultural products, the provision of services in order to provide the population with Russian food products, industry with agricultural raw materials and to promote the sustainable development of rural settlements and the corresponding inter–settlement territories.

In this regard, the field of information on the environmental impact of agricultural activities as a type of environmental information intersects with the field of information related to the provision of agriculture. In particular, certain groups of information constituting environmental information may simultaneously represent the types of information provided for in the legal regulation of agricultural activities. This seems quite acceptable and justified if such information in its content can be attributed, in accordance with paragraph 3 of Article 4.3 of the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection", to information about: the state and pollution of the environment, including the state and pollution of atmospheric air, surface waters of water bodies, soils; stationary sources, on the level and (or) volume or mass of emissions, discharges of pollutants; on measures to reduce the negative impact on the environment.

The development of agrarian legislation indicates that the importance of legal regulation of relations in the field of information management in this legislation is increasing. Thus, in agrarian legislative acts, an article or a number of articles devoted to the issues of handling information in relevant areas are usually structurally allocated. Federal Law No. 454-FZ of December 30, 2021 "On Seed Production" (RF Law No. 2022. No. 1 (Part I). Article 23), which comes into force on September 1, 2023, even contains a separate chapter 3 "Information, information resources and information systems in the field of seed production of agricultural plants". This circumstance, as we believe, indicates the increasing attention of the legislator to the information sphere, the increasing importance of information in such an economic sector as agriculture.

In addition, some of the current legislative acts have been supplemented in a short period of time with provisions on the creation and maintenance of records for a number of indicators in agriculture, which also involves the collection, processing, generalization, and receipt of certain information. Thus, Article 15.2 was introduced into the Federal Law "On the Safe Handling of Pesticides and Agrochemicals" at the end of 2020, which contains provisions on the Federal State Information System for the Traceability of Pesticides and Agrochemicals. The new information system is classified as a federal information system. The exception to the rule on the need to add pesticides and agrochemicals to the specified Federal State Information System is only those that have been sold to individuals for personal use.

In our opinion, the following types of information should be attributed to environmental information by its subject orientation and content, as indicated in Articles 5, 17 of the Federal Law "On the Development of Agriculture", Articles 15, 15.1, 16 of the Federal Law No. 101-FZ of July 16, 1998 "On State Regulation of ensuring the fertility of agricultural lands" (Federal Law of the Russian Federation. 1998. No. 101-FZ) and other acts of agrarian legislation, as information:

– on the state of the state agrarian policy – in terms of its focus on the rational use of land;

– on the state of development of organic agriculture and production of organic products;

– on chemicalization and land reclamation in agriculture;

– on state monitoring of agricultural lands – in terms of monitoring changes in the qualitative and quantitative state of agricultural lands (in accordance with the Procedure for state Monitoring of Agricultural Lands, approved by Order of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation No. 664 dated December 24, 2015);

– on the phytosanitary and epizootic state of the territory of the Russian Federation and the measures taken to identify, eliminate and prevent the spread of animal and plant diseases, pathogens of infectious animal diseases, plant pests;

– about the state of hunting resources, hunting grounds and their use.

At the same time, if we follow the concept that is implemented today in the Federal Law "On Environmental Protection", in order to accurately determine whether this or that information is environmental, in practice it will most likely be necessary to correlate it with a list of types of information in a separate act called "the content of information on the state of the environment (environmental information)", approved by the Government of the Russian Federation. Such an act was adopted in the form of an appendix to the Rules for Posting and Updating by federal executive authorities, executive authorities of the Subjects of the Russian Federation, local self-government bodies or organizations authorized by them information on the state of the environment (environmental information) on official websites in the information and telecommunications network "Internet" or with the help of state and municipal information systems, in including the content of information on the state of the environment (environmental information) and the form of its placement, approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated December 16, 2021 No. 2314, and the Content of information on the state of the environment (environmental information) posted by federal executive authorities, executive authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation, local self-government bodies or authorized by organizations on official websites in the information and telecommunications network "Internet" or with the help of state and municipal information systems, including the form of its placement (hereinafter referred to as the Content of information).

However, we believe that this act, like any similar lists, objectively narrows (although it concretizes!) the idea of the subject being defined, in particular, in cases where the information should essentially relate to environmental, but has not been formally reflected in the Content of the information. It is noteworthy that based on the experience of using the list of information related to environmental information in the Republic of Belarus, scientists concluded that in order to clarify the question whether this or that information is environmental, it is important to analyze the definition of such information and criteria for its determination ^[2]. Theoretical studies have previously led experts to similar conclusions ^[3].

As part of the environmental information, according to the Content of the information, data on monitoring the condition of agricultural lands and monitoring the use of such lands are allocated (paragraphs 74 and 75). At the same time, the source of this information classified as environmental is the unified federal information system on agricultural lands and lands used or provided for agriculture as part of lands of other categories, the maintenance of which is provided by the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia.

In paragraphs 22, 69, 73 of the Information Content are listed, respectively: information about hunting resources, their use and conservation, hunting grounds, hunters, legal entities and individual entrepreneurs engaged in activities in the field of hunting; information about permits for acclimatization of wildlife objects new to the fauna of the Russian Federation;  information about permits for the relocation of wildlife objects to new habitats. These types of environmental information also have some meaningful overlap with the information named in the agrarian legislation.

The types of information related to the assessment of the state of soils in the conduct of economic activities, in case of soil contamination with various substances, including pesticides, listed both as information in the field of agriculture and as environmental information in the comparable branches of legislation partially coincide. In particular, paragraphs 36, 40, 41 of the Information Content name the following types of environmental information: with information on the levels of pollutants and trends of long-term changes in measured substances in the soil; information on the state of pesticide pollution of environmental objects, including an assessment of actual soil pollution; the level of soil pollution in certain regions of the Russian Federation; the condition of plots, adjacent to the storage sites of pesticides; information on contamination of the soils of the Russian Federation with toxicants of industrial origin – metals, arsenic, fluorine, petroleum products, sulfates, nitrates, benz(a)pyrene, polychlorobiphenyls.

At the same time, it follows from Article 15.2 of the Federal Law "On the Safe Handling of Pesticides and Agrochemicals" that the Federal State Information System for the Traceability of Pesticides and Agrochemicals should reflect information, including information that is essential for assessing the state of the environment during the use of pesticides and agrochemicals within a certain area, a specific land plot. This information can be obtained, for example, from such documented information, which is reflected in the named Federal State Information System, as information on the use of pesticides and agrochemicals, including the cadastral number of the land plot where the use of pesticides and agrochemicals is planned, as well as on the neutralization, disposal, destruction and burial of pesticides and agrochemicals.

Thus, there is no direct and complete correspondence between the names of types of information about the state of the environment and its components in agricultural and environmental legislation. Perhaps, to the greatest extent, these types of information are brought together – from the point of view of the terminology used – only in part of the data obtained as a result of monitoring agricultural land. There are separate semantic intersections between the types of information indicated in the Content of the information as environmental, and the information specified in the agrarian laws. In most such cases, a special interpretation is required to decide whether this or that information provided in the field of agriculture is environmental in its characteristics and content. In some aspects, the information mentioned in the agrarian laws has not been reflected in the Content of the information, although in essence it should be.