As the European Commission prepares its proposals on the forthcoming reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2020, which are not expected to be revolutionary, the NGO Birdlife Europe suggests a more radical transformation of the CAP into a food and land-use policy.
Since the CAP has not been able to tackle the decline in biodiversity or arrest the depopulation of rural areas and keep small-scale farmers in business, Birdlife argues that the current two-pillar system (direct payments and rural development) needs to be replaced with a mechanism based on four main instruments:
- a transition instrument for sustainable farming - a temporary investment fund (limited to two financial periods of the EU) that should help farms switch to a nature-and-animal-friendly and profitable economic model to help them become independent of public subsidies;
- a sustainable food instrument - to reduce food waste and increase the demand for healthy and environmentally sound food at fair prices;
- a nature and biodiversity instrument - the central EU fund to finance about 75% of the costs of implementation of the EU nature legislation (for example, Natura 2000); the fund, programmed under the lead of environmental authorities, should reward specific biodiversity action undertaken by farmers and foresters with an earmarked minimum budget of €15 billion per annum;
- a space for nature instrument - an area-based entry level payment scheme, accessible for the vast majority of farmers, which dedicates a varying percentage of each farm to strictly non-productive natural elements.
The European Commission will set out the broad thrust of its proposals on the new CAP at the end of November, followed in 2018 by formal legislative proposals (see EUROPE 11854).
The Birdlife document is available at: http://bit.ly/2yDF6wr