Farming organisations must understand. If reforms are not forthcoming, the very existence of the common Agricultural Policy (CAP) could be in jeopardy. The possibility of asphyxiating it by putting a stop to its funding appears to be ruled out due to sharp response against such a project (see this column yesterday); but nothing can be taken for granted because if reforms are not forthcoming, the CAP will suffocate itself. Agricultural organisations should not delude themselves - taking rigid positions, marches, even spectacular or heated demonstrations can obtain a few momentary results but only the possibility of serious negotiations and sustainable agreements can prevent the policy collapsing. It should be pointed out that purely sectional demands to defend specific interests of one or other category of producer are inefficient and sometimes harmful. The defence of behaviour and modes of production that damage the environment no longer obtains support and can expect no success. The case of the “green algae” and drinking water pollution provoked by excessive pig rearing in a region in France are well known.
Major European level agricultural organisations (COPA and COGECA) are increasingly upping- the anti and issuing warnings. The Agricultural Council, European Commission, the European Parliament's “agriculture” committee are all very active. If, however, the public receive a lot of information about the downside to farming activities whilst being unaware of the beneficial effects, it is a lost cause and the goal of food self-sufficiency in Europe will lose support.
I will particularly take three elements into account in the considerations that follow: a) the document from the Socialist group at the European Parliament supporting more far-reaching reform of the CAP, summarised in EUROPE 10091; b) a recent conference on the CAP organised by Georges Rencki, who as a young European civil servant was part of Sicco Mansholt's team at the time the CAP was created; c) agricultural news regularly published in our daily publication.
The Socialist group's principles. The Socialist plan urged recognition of the legitimacy of public aid used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle water pollution and soil degradation. This aid acknowledged as legitimate at an international level would subsequently become watertight at a WTO level too. Public funding would also be planned for getting young farmers started, vocational training, early retirement and more general investments made in farms, in an effort to promote sustainable agricultural production in the whole of the EU. The CAP will require a sufficiently adequate budget to remunerate the services rendered to society by farming and which, due to the nature of the services, cannot be considered as an economic sector in the same way as other services. It is on the basis of these principles that the new CAP should be built.
Winning over public opinion again. In addition to these principles, Mr Rencki is not ignoring the mistakes and abuses experienced by the CAP during the course of its history, which were essentially due to the initial differences existing between the member states. He gives the specific example of price guarantees that were not subject to any limits on quantity but which were justified as a way of encouraging production during a period of food shortages; setting guaranteed prices too high, as sought by Germany in an effort to safeguard its production. This provoked artificial surpluses as well as epizooties (mad cow!), nitrate water pollution, excessive use of pesticides, the destruction of certain services and sometimes excessive export subsidies. Ought one therefore to conclude that the CAP should be abandoned? Absolutely not, because the way in which the world has evolved requires the contrary and for it to be maintained, given the: a) expansion in global demand for food products, economic and, above all, demographic growth; b) increasing frequency of climate related accidents; c) artificial elements such as: the production of biofuels; speculation on agricultural prices; the stampede from China, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates etc towards agricultural land in Africa. The EU should, in any case, reduce some of its production in order to make it compatible with environmental imperatives by putting limits on fertilisers, pesticides, processed animal feed and even, sometimes irrigation. EU farming should become less “industrial” and take into account the words of the former commissioner for agriculture, Franz Fischler: “Technology and chemistry have provided farmers with the means to live at the cost of future generations and jeopardise the future”.
The general conclusions of Georges Rencki can be read in the pages that follow.
(F.R./transl.fl)