In an opinion adopted on 5 February, the European Committee of the Regions proposed a comprehensive catalogue of measures to promote agro-ecology in the EU. According to the CoR, agro-ecology reduces the carbon footprint of agriculture, promotes the recovery of biodiversity, restores soil fertility, prevents air and water pollution and increases the economic resilience of farms producing healthy and affordable food.
Agriculture takes up half of the EU’s land area and generates 10% of the EU’s annual carbon emissions.
The rapporteur, Guillaume Cros (Greens, France), the Vice-President of the Regional Council of Occitanie, believes that the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of our globalised agri-food system. “Agro-ecology provides the right answer to the many challenges we face”.
The members of the Committee believe that the ongoing reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is an opportunity “to green the agricultural sector, reduce its harmful effects on the environment and guarantee food security in the EU”.
The CoR believes that agro-ecology, which is based on small and medium-sized farms, will not be able to develop if CAP direct payments continue to be allocated on the basis of the number of hectares rather than the number of people working on a farm.
The CoR therefore proposes a gradual shift from a basic payment per hectare to a basic payment linked to the number of people working on a farm and to give priority to direct payments to small and medium-sized agro-ecological farms.
The CoR proposes : - a new EU directive on agricultural soils; - the development of short supply chains; - new rules on agricultural land; - protected agricultural areas.
Lastly, it wants EU legislation to exclude genetically modified or mutagenic seeds and wants the EU to stop importing agricultural products that do not meet its social and environmental production standards.
The CoR opinion can be found at: https://bit.ly/3p6Xt6N (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)