In a report presented in Paris on 23 October, the government institution France Strat\u00e9gie proposed to support employment in the agricultural sector rather than the amount of cultivated land. But for this to become reality, a complete overhaul of the EU\u2019s Common Agricultural Policy is needed. EURACTIV France reports.<\/p>\n
France Strat\u00e9gie, the institution of experts attached to the prime minister\u2019s office, has published a report entitled \u201cMaking the CAP a lever for the agro-ecological transition\u201d and presented its findings in Paris on Wednesday (23 October).<\/p>\n
In light of the EU\u2019s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) being revamped for the 2021-2027 period, but with no significant changes having been proposed so far, the institution noted that the support system for European farmers is \u201cout of breath\u201d and called for increased focus on the employment situation of farmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to think about what an ideal CAP would be,\u201d explained the authors of the report. When it was first set up in the 1960s, the CAP aimed to increase European agricultural production and secure Europe\u2019s food independence.<\/p>\n
And it has been mostly successful in doing so, but, in the face of environmental and climate challenges, the CAP is currently struggling to provide the right answers.<\/p>\n
And farmers have not been better off as a result, as 25% of French farmers live below the poverty line.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the 1990s, environmental and climate issues have gradually been integrated into the CAP,\u201d said Pierre Dupraz, the research director of France\u2019s national institute of agricultural research (INRA).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe instruments are not adapted,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
From hectare to employment<\/p>\n
To redirect aid towards \u2018greening\u2019 European agriculture and maintaining employment, France Strat\u00e9gie\u2019s report suggested basing farmers subsidies on employment aid, as opposed to measuring the funding allocated according to hectares of land cultivated, which is currently the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe basic payment system must evolve towards payments based on agricultural employment and no longer be based on the number of hectares cultivated,\u201d explained Gilles de Margerie, commissioner-general of France Strat\u00e9gie.<\/p>\n
Based on the aid paid in 2018 for direct payments (\u20ac5.7 billion) and the number of full-time equivalents in 2016 (711,000), the annual cheque for one full-time agricultural worker would thus have amounted to \u20ac8,000 that year.<\/p>\n
\u2018Polluter pays\u2019 principle<\/p>\n
Another proposal is to recast the second pillar support system into a simplified bonus\/penalty system. In other words, farmers could be taxed based on their use of fertilisers, pesticides, antibiotics and greenhouse gas emissions per the carbon tax principle.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, they would be remunerated for their virtuous practices for the environment: permanent grasslands, crop diversification or the establishment of areas of ecological interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese tools will make it possible to enhance the value of mixed livestock farming and agro-ecological farms, but also of small farms,\u201d explained Julien Fosse, deputy director of France Strat\u00e9gie\u2019s sustainable and digital development department.<\/p>\n
Despite the consensus that is starting to be built around the shift of the CAP towards supporting employment in the agricultural sector, there is still a long way to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday there is an awareness of the limits of the current system and the various players in the sector are ready to open the debate,\u201d Gilles de Margerie said.<\/p>\n
In Brussels, the debate on the future CAP should reopen after the new European Commission takes office on 1 December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a report presented in Paris on 23 October, the government institution France Strat\u00e9gie proposed to support employment in the agricultural sector rather than the amount of cultivated land. But for this to become reality, a complete overhaul of the EU\u2019s Common Agricultural Policy is needed. EURACTIV France reports. France Strat\u00e9gie, the institution of experts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[15963,14365],"supplier":[5585],"class_list":["post-67949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-cap","tag-farming","supplier-european-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67949"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=67949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}