MEPs on the European Parliament’s agriculture committee voted by 33 to 2, with 3 abstentions, on Tuesday 24 April to adopt an own initiative report on getting young people into agriculture, laying great stress on access to land.
The report by Nicola Caputo (S&D, Italy) will now be scrutinised and put to a vote in Parliament at the end of May. It will inform the discussion on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). MEPs are calling for further support to ensure generational renewal.
The report takes stock of how well CAP instruments have been working for young farmers since the 2013 reform and proposes increasing the maximum level of additional direct aid for young farmers from the current 2%.
“Access to land is the largest barrier to new entrants to farming in Europe”, the report says. Access to land is limited by the low supply of land for sale or rent in many regions, as well as competition from other farmers, investors and residential users, it states. MEPs call for the required activity levels to be increased for farmers to receive payments and for subsidy payments to be targeted towards achievement of particular outcomes, such as the production of specific environmental or social goods. They would like to see incentive measures to motivate older farmers pass their farms to younger generations. The European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA) has welcomed the proposals. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)