Brussels, 18/09/2008 (Agence Europe) - French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier has invited his 26 European counterparts to an informal meeting in Annecy from Sunday 21 to Tuesday 23 September in order to launch the debate on the future of the common agricultural policy (CAP) after 2013.
Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel and Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou will also attend the meeting.
In the morning of Monday 22 September, there will be a discussion on infectious diseases, with Alain Mérieux, Chief Executive of bioMérieux (a world player in the in vitro diagnostics sector). As is traditional at informal meetings, on Monday, ministers will visit farms and the agrifood industry. Barnier will take his guests to the Massif des Bauges Regional Natural Park, above Annecy. Hill farming, which has formed the scenery and villages of the area, seeks to “maintain quality products and knowledge deeply rooted in mountain traditions,” the French Presidency explains in a press release.
The experts of the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) will meet on Monday morning to discuss, in particular, the CAP (see EUROPE 9738). In addition, the Cypriot delegation will present its request to the SCA to be able to grant state aid to the country's farmers who have been suffering as a result of the chronic drought. The Council will consider the issue shortly. There has to be unanimous agreement in the Council, it must be remembered, for state aid to be authorised.
The EU agriculture ministers' work session on Tuesday 23 September will be devoted to the targets that Europe wants to set for the CAP after the current financial framework (2007-2013) expires. Farming remains central to the concerns of our society and is facing many challenges. It is essential “to address these challenges within a Community framework and come to a new consensus on the goals that Europe should set for its agriculture,” says the French agriculture minister. “The European Union,” he says, “needs an ambitious and balanced agricultural policy”.
The French Presidency has drawn up a paper as a basis for the ministers' discussion on the post-2013 CAP. This document has two major chapters.
The new context: some observations
According to the paper, the increase in prices of some agricultural commodities (cereals, oilseeds, butter and milk powder, particularly) since 2006 has changed the situation. The increase in agricultural productivity, the paper says, combined with the emergence of second generation biofuels which compete less with food production should “reduce the tension on certain commodity markets”. However, over the next ten years at least, agriculture will probably have to face uncertainty over the final balance between supply and demand. There is broad consensus that there will be greater price instability because of: - the wider opening of markets; - climate change, which will increase the frequency and scale of unforeseen natural disasters; - further health crises and their effects on the markets.
Furthermore, account must be taken of the strategies of the other major producing areas (United States, Brazil) and the major consuming areas (China, India). The decisions these major partners make could have an effect on world prices on the medium to long term. Some have already chosen options - the consequences of which are considerable, such as the United States with its Farm Bill and Brazil with its biofuels policy.
Production methods, or at least some of them, could find themselves under pressure as a result of certain phenomena that are already apparent (these include global warming, competition over land use, scarcity of water resources, sustained rise in energy costs, human health).
The challenges facing the CAP of the future
Agriculture lies at the heart of the economic, ecological and social challenges of tomorrow, the French Presidency says. The CAP would find new legitimacy if it were to show it could meet three
major challenges:
The challenge of food production. In recent decades, it might have been thought that food supplies were assured and that the basic challenge for agricultural policies was to reduce supply, at least in the developed countries. There has now been a change of context, with dramatic price rises for some agricultural commodities and world stocks at a low ebb. Population growth is continuing, with the world population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. The rapid rise in the standard of living in the emerging economies has changed eating patterns with increasing consumption of animal protein. These developments will mean that the demand for food will double by 2050. At the same time, there has been no reduction in hunger in the world, and more than 800 people do to have enough to eat. Access to food has once again become a strategic issue. Of course, increases in productivity are still possible. However, the ability to increase production is severely threatened by decreasing yields in some parts of the world, by climate change and by land becoming unproductive because of urbanisation and infrastructure. “These developments make the challenge of production the priority issue for agriculture the world over,” the paper reads.
Europe, with its proven agricultural potential, must help meet this challenge, while ensuring that any possible distorting effects of its policies are limited. The EU has already done much: it has halved its refunds over a period of 15 years and has decoupled aid to farmers. In addition, within the context of the WTO, the EU has undertaken to abolish refunds subject to a reciprocal effort by its partners.
The CAP will also have to do even more to respond to the requirements of food safety and diversity. Consumers will have ever more rigorous views on food safety; and to this will be added the public health considerations to do with nutritional balance (the problem of obesity). Finally, the food-related challenge also concerns our ability to ensure that that our least privileged fellow citizens have access to food. The European programme to assist them is currently being weakened by the gradual disappearance of the stocks on which it was based. It needs to be strengthened and consolidated in an enlarged Europe (see EUROPE 9742 for the Commission's proposals).
The environmental challenge. After responding to the need for safe, high quality food, agriculture will now have to reconcile economic performance and ecological efficiency in a sustainable development approach. This new state of affairs concerns agriculture the world over, affecting its sustainability and, thus, its ability to feed a rapidly growing world population. Agricultural policy must help respond to the increase in world demand, and to bring about agriculture which uses its input products sparingly and provides added value, thus creating jobs. It must also let agriculture position itself as a producer of renewable energy and biomaterials to help combat climate change. Environmental policy can no longer be regarded as opposed to, or even separate from, agricultural policy. This new dimension not only provides a new track for agricultural development to follow, it is also one of the conditions for the long-term legitimacy of agricultural policy. Advantage has to be taken of the possibilities offered by new technologies, and a central place given to research, innovation and advice. This dimension is part of the Lisbon strategy.
The challenge of location. In a globalised world, logic would suggest that production and employment should be concentrated in the most competitive areas. The CAP, however, must make it possible to maintain viable agriculture in every region: - because it supports production in a large number of rural areas, creating a web of small and medium-sized enterprises rooted in their local area; - because it leads in diversity of production methods and in eating habits; - because it provides for the quality of the countryside, which itself creates value (tourism and beauty); - because it contributes to territorial cohesion, a major component of social cohesion in a largely urbanised society.
These different forms of agriculture, as long as they are economically viable and ecologically sustainable, must be preserved and consolidated as the CAP develops.
In this context, a renewed agricultural policy should meet four objectives, the document argues: - ensuring the food security of the EU, including the food safety aspect linked to rising health risks; - contributing to the global food balance, so as to participate in world food safety and be present in the markets of the future; - maintaining the balance of rural areas, to maintain territorial cohesion and the ensure that there is work and employment; - participating in the fight against climate change and improving the environment, by creating agriculture which reconciles economic performance and ecological efficiency. (L.C./transl.rt)