As work gets underway in Europe to define the post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the challenges are immense: an unstable geopolitical context; the drastic disappearance of farms and the loss of several hundred farmers every day, quickly replaced by large-scale and industrialised agricultural models; high poverty levels among the smallest farmers; monopolisation of production means such as water and land by a few actors; increasingly frequent extreme climate and health events; soil depletion; pollution linked to agricultural practices; and rising food insecurity, to name but a few.
The European Union set itself ten objectives for the CAP in 2023, and unfortunately, not a single one has yet been achieved. In 1962, the Treaty of Rome outlined the CAP objectives of ensuring satisfactory incomes for farmers, fair prices for consumers, and stable agricultural markets. Shocking as it is, the average age of farmers in the European Union is 57 years. The drastic increase in food insecurity—illustrated by the rise in requests for emergency food aid and caused by the decline in purchasing power—makes it evident that the EU has also failed to achieve its founding objectives. The next reform cannot ignore this deplorable situation.
ECVC, in a position paper released in May this year, demands that the CAP be designed to restore food sovereignty through market regulation and a strong budget allocated according to appropriate criteria, ensuring a significant shift toward agroecology.
Here is a summary of ECVC’s recommendations.
A strong budget directed and dedicated to agroecological transition
ECVC notes that the CAP must remain a strong, distinct and fair European budget and ensure the agroecological transition. The Common Agricultural Policy is the European Union’s largest budget and plays a major strategic role. It currently represents 31% of the EU budget (€378.5 billion) for the period 2021–2027.
In order to implement these mechanisms fairly across Europe and enable a coherent common market between EU countries, the CAP must maintain a strong budget, which must be directed and dedicated to agroecological transition, food sovereignty and rural development. The policy must use market regulation to guarantee stable and remunerative prices, and fairer distribution of direct payments and payments for sustainable development (mentioned below) must be guaranteed by a high level of ambition at EU level, rather than by greater flexibility for Member States.
Strengthen the Common Market Organization (CMO) for stronger regulation of European agricultural markets
ECVC calls for the next CAP reform to break away from the current agricultural model, which focuses on the interests of industry, distributors and agro-exporters that completely ignore the consequences for farmers and ecosystems. Current geopolitical issues require a rethinking of the continent’s strategic autonomy, the reterritorialisation of food systems, and recovery of food sovereignty in political decisions.
ECVC also insists that the EU must strengthen the Common Market Organization (CMO), which allows it to organise the regulation of European agricultural markets. The next Common Market Organization (CMO) must ensure remunerative and stable prices that cover production costs for producers—including wages and salaries at least at minimum wage levels and social protection for both employees and farmers—regulate the volumes produced and placed on the market, manage strategic stocks publicly, support the agroecological transition and sustainable agricultural practices, strengthen crisis prevention and management policies, increase import regulation while controlling the quality standards of imported products and organising minimum entry prices, and strengthen producer organisations to guarantee the effective participation of farmers through democratic practices.
A Genuine ‘Common’ Agricultural and Food policy
In its paper ECVC lays out five key axes for the next reform of the CAP. First, market regulation and fair prices must be central. Second, the CAP must enable access to land and move away from the logic that drives farms to expand and specialise. Third, the CAP must be jointly coordinated with public food policies. Fourth, CAP mechanisms must support food production rather than incentivise land use for energy production, such as agrofuels, methanization, and agrivoltaics. Fifth, the CAP must mobilise all available levers—combining market regulation and targeted payments—to territorialise food systems and move away from specialised territorial production. This comprehensive approach involves integrating many new farmers into the sector and promoting cooperation between farms. It also requires decentralising the agri-food industry in an organised way, relocating services and businesses related to slaughter, milk collection, processing, and more to local territories. Ultimately, this strategy must promote the development of local jobs, including in artisanal sectors and public services.
A fairer system for distributing CAP payments
The proposal from the small-scale farmers unions is that CAP payments must support an agroecological transition for numerous, diversified and resilient farms. Market regulation must maintain farms through fair prices, which must constitute the main basis of farmers’ income. In addition, public financial support remains essential to accompany the necessary transition of the European agricultural model towards an agriculture that meets the challenges of climate, the environment and the well-being of both humans and animals.
At present there are flagrant inequalities in the distribution of payments between different types of farms. ECVC insists that the CAP payments must be targeting those who need it most by moving away from the logic of granting payments based solely on the surface area of farms (as is often the case in the first pillar), capital and/or the capacity to invest (as is often the case, implicitly, in the second pillar). It has called for the introduction of degressivity and a capping on all CAP payments per active farmer and per farm. The paper also calls for reworking the definition of an active farmer to ensure that payments go to individuals who actually carry out agricultural activity and earn their living from their work on the land. An effective minimum set of requirements be set that all farmers must meet to benefit from CAP payments (preserve meadows and wetlands, ensure minimum crop rotation, preserve non-productive areas for biodiversity, etc.).
The objective of CAP payments must focus on support the sustainability of farms, particularly small and medium-sized farms. Significantly increase payments to support the creation and setting-up of agricultural businesses, as well as payments to new farmers (both young people and those over 40) and to support all new farmers in setting up or taking over farms. It should also protect agricultural workers through effective social conditionality, supplemented by effective measures to monitor and sanction violations.
