Farm Europe outlines its key priorities to agriculture to Commissioner Hansen

Today, Luc Vernet, Secretary General of Farm Europe together with Ettore Prandini, chair of Farm Europe’s strategic committee and President of Coldiretti, presented Farm Europe’s key priorities to Mr Christophe Hansen, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food.

Those orientations are based on key trends that should be taken into account :

• If we continue not integrating inflation to adjust the value of the CAP in 2034, 54% of its value will evaporate (or 250 billions EUR), in 14 years only.
• Over the last 20 years, farmers’ income dropped by 12% per hectare, the EU lost 37% of its farmers and farmers’ debts increased by 30%.
• The European Union lost 11 million hectares of agricultural land while its agricultural footprint in the world increased by 10 million hectares.

These indicators turning red, we urgently call for a new direction for the EU policy so that the farming communities across Europe see concrete and positive developments coming from the European Union. EU policies in the next five years should focus on:

• the need to rebuild the economic attractiveness of agriculture, including for boosting generation renewal.
• the need to secure agricultural production all across Europe and not only in the most productive areas.
  shaping a true agriculture sovereignty in Europe to meet the food and non food demand for our Continent and beyond.

Therefore, as core principles for the future of EU agriculture policy, we call for:

• a strong and dedicated EU budget for a truly common CAP. This budget should be adjusted to inflation (in constant EUR), with strong leverage effect on investments, territorial balance, risks and crisis management, and generational renewal.
• a clear farmers’-centric CAP focusing on entrepreneurs and incentives to enhance a sustainable intensification of EU production rather than norms discouraging farmers.
• a permanent combination of economic and environmental performance, integrating the capacity of EU agriculture to decarbonize other sectors and accelerating innovation.

Those principles should be applied to the toolbox of the CAP with a refocus of the policy on entrepreneurs, production and optimal use of natural resources and cycles.