With big farms gobbling up nearly half of the CAP pie, direct payments are exacerbating income inequality among farmers – whilst fuelling the destruction of the very environment upon which farming depends, finds a new study by Murray Scown, Kimberly Nicholas and Mark Brady. […]
Switzerland is well known for holding referendums. A new one that’s coming up asks for a change in subsides to farmers, towards supporting more ecological priorities. If the Clean Drinking Water Initiative passes, payments will go to farmers who don’t use pesticides or antibiotics, and who carry lower livestock numbers on their farms. Klaus Lans has more. […]
Three-quarters of the Common Agricultural Policy budget goes into direct payments for farmers – almost regardless of what they do. Most of the money benefits just a few large producers and fails to deliver on the social and environmental challenges rural areas face. […]
In part 2 of our re:CAP series we return to Christian Rehmer (BUND, Friends of the Earth Germany), Aurélie Catallo (Pour Une Autre PAC), Ulrich Jaspers (AbL and Die Verbände-Plattform) and Ariel Brunner and Harriet Bradley (BirdLife) to talk capping. What should be the level for capping and redistribution and what should be the criteria for that? […]
Greening measures found to be ineffective in enhancing the CAPs environmental performance, a report by the European Court of Auditors finds. As well as critique of the current greening measures, the ECA report provided a set of recommendations to improve environmental performance in the upcoming CAP reform. […]
Sebastian Lakner & Guy Pe’er question the effectiveness of the current CAP’s performance, as well as the lack of ambition in the CAP communication. Current direct payments and upcoming supposed flexibilities are considered in detail. […]
Tom Lancaster, Senior Agriculture Policy Officer at the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) assesses the uncertain terrain of the UK, farm subsidies and public goods post Brexit. In doing so, some interesting considerations emerge for the EU too. […]
In anticipation of the 2015 figures on direct payments distribution, due in a couple of weeks, we highlight a new post by Alan Matthews using the 2014 figures. Matthews shows in detail just how unbalanced CAP payments are between higher and lower income farmers. […]
EU funds will be used to consolidate holdings: that’s push small producers & peasants off the land […]
On the 3rd of June, Greek Agriculture Minister Athanasios Tsautaris announced proposals for the implementation of the new CAP. […]
EU Commission to apply financial discipline mechanism for the CAP budget for 2015. […]
Guest post by Luke-Dale Harris : in Romania the main stronghold of sustainable agriculture is ironically held up by the least sustainable of sources. […]
UK committed to applying an “active farmer” test to ensure SPS payments in future […]
Commission and Parliament join informal meeting of Agriculture Ministers in Ireland […]
Internal convergence on the agenda as EU Agriculture Ministers meet in Brussels. […]
Agricultural and Rural Convention