The European Commission has promoted the uptake of new imaging technologies for monitoring agricultural activities, but a number of obstacles to their more widespread use remain, according to a report by the EU Court of Auditors published on Tuesday 28 January.
These technologies (Copernicus Sentinel satellites) are likely to change the way the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is managed and monitored.
According to the auditors, the EU has encouraged their use in recent years to assess area-based direct payments to farmers, but progress has been slower on using them to monitor environmental and climatic requirements.
According to the audit, the Commission has been playing an active role in promoting and supporting the use of new imaging technologies.
In May 2018, a first paying agency in Italy started using the 'checks by monitoring' approach in one province (Foggia). In 2019, 15 paying agencies (in Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Malta) adopted the same approach. Thirteen other paying agencies in eight other Member States intend to start applying it this year for certain aid schemes.
To date, the Commission’s work has prioritised the use of new technologies to monitor area-based direct payment schemes rather than environmental and climate requirements. In 2019, none of the paying agencies implemented 'checks by monitoring' for these conditional requirements for aid and rural development schemes. The auditors also found that much of the proposed set of performance indicators for the future CAP was largely not designed for direct monitoring with Copernicus Sentinel data. Link to the report: https://bit.ly/37vf4NE (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)