EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski told MEPs on Monday 9 January that he would propose “an increase in the budget for the Common Agricultural Policy” during the mid-term review of the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027.
“We cannot ask farmers to do more with less, especially in the face of today’s unprecedented challenges,” the Commissioner justified during a debate before the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee on the effects of rising inflation on the CAP budget.
He acknowledged that the CAP budget had “difficulties in catching up with inflation” and that there was currently a “significant gap”. If we consider the value of agricultural production in the EU, which has increased mainly due to inflation, it has risen from €440 billion last year to €536 billion, which means that the annual CAP budget represents only 10% of the value of annual agricultural production in the EU.
“Indeed, this amount will not have an impact on farmers’ incomes comparable to previous years, and I think we should start to worry about this issue”, Wojciechowski warned. He added that there are indications that some organic farmers in Europe “are beginning to consider a return to conventional agriculture”.
“What worries me is that the decrease in the percentage value of CAP payments in relation to total farm income will lead to specific problems,” he added.
Herbert Dorfmann (EPP, Italian) estimated that farmers’ CAP incomes are down by 10% due to higher prices.
The situation is very worrying, added Clara Aguilera (S&D, Spanish). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)