Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 14 • Number 28 • 28th July 2010

Farmers, Other Groups Tussle over EU Farm Policy Future

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Starkly opposing views of the future of European farming were evident at a major conference organised by the European Commission in Brussels on 19 and 20 July. While farm groups argued for the continuation of strong support under the bloc’s costly and controversial Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), environmentalists, development groups and others called for the EU’s policy instruments to be reoriented around clearly defined public policy goals such as environmental protection.

The “CAP post 2013 Conference” concluded a massive online public consultation that was launched in April by EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloş in a bid to gather public input to guide reforms that will take effect in the 2014-2020 budgetary cycle. More than 600 participants attended the conference, while the broader consultation process prompted some 5,000 responses. The Commission distilled those submissions into a summary document that was presented at the opening of the conference.

At the meeting, European farm groups such as COPA-COGECA called on the Commission to ensure that the future CAP addresses food security, helps farmers respond to increasingly costly EU regulations, and enables producers to respond to increasingly volatile market prices. For this to happen, the group insisted, the EU agriculture budget and direct payments to farmers must be maintained.

Environmental groups at the conference argued that CAP reform should focus on the delivery of public goods, including environmental protection, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. One participant reported that rural development networks were also well represented. Such organisations want to see EU support shifted away from large firms and targeted instead at producers in struggling rural regions.

The impact of EU farm policy on the bloc’s trading partners did not emerge as a dominant issue at last week’s meeting. However, some development organisations did criticise the CAP for continuing to generate surpluses that artificially depress world prices for key products, thereby undercutting farmers in developing countries. These groups called for the CAP to be reformed to reduce the harm it inflicts on the economies and food production capacities of developing countries.

The Commission is expected to present an options paper in November in which it will outline its own ideas as well as those put forward during the public consultation. That document is likely to be critical in shaping future reforms to the CAP. However, given the fiscal challenges now facing EU member governments, many observers suspect that the CAP’s coffers will inevitably shrink in the next budget period.

ICTSD reporting; “The Future of the CAP after 2013”, Copa-Cogeca, 27 July 2010; “The Common Agricultural Policy after 2013: Summary Report”, European Commission Agriculture and Rural Development, 27 July 2010; “EU urged to promote “territorial vision” of farming”, EurActiv.com, 23 July, 2010; “Agreement sought on CAP reform”, RTE News, 20 July, 2010.

One response to “Farmers, Other Groups Tussle over EU Farm Policy Future”

Jonathan Hepburn 29th July 2010 at 08:10
ICTSD analysis of how the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy could better support sustainable development goals is available online here.

Similarly, a summary of ICTSD research on decoupled support in the WTO ‘green box’ can be seen here.