Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

The EU must overhaul its farming policy to save the Green Deal

Célia Nyssens 29th September 2020

European decision-makers are entering the final sprint of reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. Their choices will make or break the European Green Deal.

Farm to Fork, F2F, CAP
Célia Nyssens

Our food system—how we produce, process, transport, trade, consume and waste food—is the source of around 30 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, the single largest driver of the biodiversity crisis and the cause of unsustainable soil erosion, over-extraction of water resources and health-threatening air and water pollution. It is a system of plenty, as we have never produced as much food as we do today, but it is also linked to widespread misery—from farmers unable to make a decent living from their work to low-income populations with little access to healthy food, who suffer disproportionately from diet-related health conditions.

In response to these challenges, the European Commission published its Farm to Fork Strategy: for a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system, a ‘cornerstone’ of its flagship European Green Deal. Farm to Fork (F2F) lays out how the commission intends to promote a transition towards sustainable food systems, as part of the shift towards a more equitable, circular and climate-neutral economy.

Unfit for purpose

When it comes to implementing this new vision for agriculture, however, the primary instrument put forward by the commission is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). And here’s the catch: for over two years, scientists, the European Court of Auditors, think tanks and civil society have been warning that the proposed new CAP is not fit for purpose.

Despite this, and after two years of discussion at the Agriculture Council and the European Parliament, it is looking dangerously likely that the new CAP will be worse than the current version in terms of environmental performance. Moreover, the bar is already very low: the policy is not delivering on biodiversity and water protection, nor on climate mitigation. 

Even the commission itself, in an analysis published alongside F2F, recognised several ‘potential obstacles and/or gaps jeopardising the ambition level of the Green Deal in the agricultural sector’. This admission is striking—not least because despite conceding that the CAP could jeopardise the European Green Deal, the commission has resolutely refused to take meaningful action to salvage its reform. 

A legal analysis by Client Earth published in July concluded that, by defending this flawed CAP proposal, the commission is failing not only in its political commitment to the Green Deal but also in its legal obligations under the European Union treaties. ‘Keeping consistency among policies and throughout an institution’s own course of behaviour is a logical approach but it’s also a legal requirement under the EU treaties,’ Client Earth’s head of agriculture, Marc Pittie, explained. 

Stakes too high

The stakes are too high for failure: there is global scientific consensus that we have ten years to prevent catastrophic climate change and the collapse of our natural world, and agriculture is central to the change that is needed. The Covid-19 crisis only strengthens the case for a change of direction in EU agriculture, to address the root causes of new zoonotic diseases. A recent United Nations report identified seven trends driving their increasing emergence, including growing demand for animal protein (meat, dairy and eggs) and unsustainable farming practices. 

To rise to this challenge, every single decision-maker must step up to the plate and deliver the urgent climate action and environmental protection European citizens are demanding. Stronger safeguards, a clear direction of travel and robust governance need to be written into law, if the new CAP is to deliver on the European Green Deal.

The commission cannot maintain a laissez-faire approach, which amounts to greenwashing the CAP. To give itself the mandate to achieve a new CAP compatible with its Green Deal, it must work closely with the co-legislators to align the new CAP with F2F. 

The European Parliament’s plenary vote on the CAP in October will be crucial too. For the second time ever, MEPs have a chance to shape how the most expensive EU programme distributes taxpayers’ money: will it be in favour of business as usual, or transformative change towards a fairer, more sustainable and more resilient agriculture?

Making the transition

Finally, agriculture ministers must walk the walk. Since most EU governments welcomed the European Green Deal and F2F, at least ‘in principle’, they must now turn words into actions and ensure the new CAP helps farmers make the transition before it is too late. 

Five key changes must be made to the CAP proposal to ensure it does not derail delivery of the Green Deal:

  • Strict safeguards to end harmful subsidies: public policy and money must not support or, worse, promote practices which are clearly contributing to the climate and biodiversity crises, polluting our environment and/or depleting natural resources. As an absolute minimum for policy coherence, strict legal safeguards are needed to end CAP support for intensive livestock production, farming on degraded peatlands or over-extraction of water for irrigation—to name but a few examples.
  • A strong, common environmental baseline: any farmer or land manager receiving public money must be required to adhere to good basic agronomic and environmental practices, which should be common across EU countries to ensure a level playing field. This should include, as advocated by the parliament’s Environment Committee, protecting permanent grasslands, setting a maximum livestock stocking density, dedicating space for nature on all farms and mainstreaming basic integrated pest-management practices, such as crop rotations, buffer strips and constant soil cover.
  • Binding quantitative targets to give a clear direction: the European Green Deal targets related to agriculture must be integrated into the CAP to ensure their effective implementation and to give a clear direction to the policy. Without this legal basis, the commission has no mandate to ask member states to contribute to EU-wide voluntary targets, and national governments have made it clear they will not do more than what is legally required of them.
  • Funding to enable and incentivise change: for the new CAP to deliver on the promises of the European Green Deal, sufficient funding must be allocated to measures that deliver environmental and climate action. In addition, in line with the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy, €15 billion per year should be reserved for targeted funding for effective biodiversity measures. 
  • Greater transparency and accountability: as long as the CAP is funded by public money from the EU budget, member states must be accountable to the commission for how the money is spent and whether it contributes to achieving EU environmental objectives and laws. 

Change is hard. It is full of risk. There are winners and losers. But today change is the only option we have, because the status quo in our food and agricultural system is unsustainable. The European Green Deal promises to deliver a just transition to a fairer and cleaner economy. The CAP must be part of this change. This will safeguard our ability to produce food into the future, it will save lives by reducing air pollution and slowing climate change and it will contribute to a better future, in which people and nature thrive together.

Pics
Célia Nyssens

Célia Nyssens is policy officer for agriculture at the European Environmental Bureau.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u4219834676d582029 038f 486a 8c2b fe32db91c9b0 2 Trump Can’t Kill the Boom: Why the US Economy Will Roar Despite HimNouriel Roubini
u42198346fb0de2b847 0 How the Billionaire Boom Is Fueling Inequality—and Threatening DemocracyFernanda Balata and Sebastian Mang
u421983441e313714135 0 Why Europe Needs Its Own AI InfrastructureDiane Coyle
u42198346ecb10de1ac 2 Europe Day with New DimensionsLászló Andor and Udo Bullmann
u421983467a362 1feb7ac124db 2 How Europe’s Political Parties Abandoned Openness—and Left Populism to Fill the VoidColin Crouch

Most Popular Articles

startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer
u421983467 2a24 4c75 9482 03c99ea44770 3 Trump’s Trade War Tears North America Apart – Could Canada and Mexico Turn to Europe?Malcolm Fairbrother
u4219834676e2a479 85e9 435a bf3f 59c90bfe6225 3 Why Good Business Leaders Tune Out the Trump Noise and Stay FocusedStefan Stern
u42198346 4ba7 b898 27a9d72779f7 1 Confronting the Pandemic’s Toxic Political LegacyJan-Werner Müller
u4219834676574c9 df78 4d38 939b 929d7aea0c20 2 The End of Progess? The Dire Consequences of Trump’s ReturnJoseph Stiglitz

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

KU Leuven advertisement

The Politics of Unpaid Work

This new book published by Oxford University Press presents the findings of the multiannual ERC research project “Researching Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Work Continuum”,
led by Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), which are very important for the prospects of a more equal Europe.

Unpaid labour is no longer limited to the home or volunteer work. It infiltrates paid jobs, eroding rights and deepening inequality. From freelancers’ extra hours to care workers’ unpaid duties, it sustains precarity and fuels inequity. This book exposes the hidden forces behind unpaid labour and calls for systemic change to confront this pressing issue.

DOWNLOAD HERE FOR FREE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

What kind of impact is artificial intelligence (AI) having, or likely to have, on the way we work and the conditions we work under? Discover the latest issue of HesaMag, the ETUI’s health and safety magazine, which considers this question from many angles.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
How are minimum wage levels changing in Europe?

In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

Listeners can delve into the intricacies of Europe's minimum wage dynamics and the driving factors behind these shifts. The conversation also highlights the broader effects of minimum wage changes on income inequality and gender equality.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641