Brussels, 10/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - As part of the common agricultural policy (CAP) reform, account must be taken of the diversity of the agricultural situations in the EU, and the dominant model of family farming should be taken into account by the countries of the EU to ensure it a future, said European Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Ciolos at the informal meeting of European agriculture ministers in Vilnius on Tuesday 10 September. The theme of family farming was chosen by the Lithuanian Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers, and it dominated Tuesday's debates.
Ciolos stressed that the CAP was necessary but not enough to sustain the development of this model. Many things depend on the national or regional level - for example, taxation policy and the policy on the transfer of capital, inheritance policy (young farmers inheriting from the previous generation) and land policy. He recommended “a legal framework favouring the transmission or acquisition of the means of production”. Several ministers, such as those from Poland and the Netherlands, underlined that family farms put up the best resistance in times of crisis, thanks to their more elastic structure. Germany stressed innovation, inheritance tax, and short supply chains. France took the example of the livestock sector - a sector that risks moving in the direction of American-style industrialisation - and France stressed the need to keep coupled aid for this sector, in particular. For the UK, it was particularly the issue of new entrants, and the best technology must be directed towards farmers. In Italy, 75% of jobs in agriculture are linked to family farming, said the Italian minister. He also spoke about the need to improve access to the land and said that Italy had set up a system of tax breaks for agricultural land. Several ministers underlined the fact that the strengthening of producer organisations and inter-branch organisations will have a very positive impact on the family farming model. (LC/transl.fl)