The European Parliament approved the post-2022 CAP, 23.11.21. However, the new Common Agricultural Policy-which is worth nearly one-third (32 percent) of the EU budget-is a smoke-gray reform, as already announced. Indeed a failure, for the ecological transition and its protagonists.
CAP post-2022, goals betrayed
The new post-2022 CAP does not incorporate the goals of the new
Green Deal
European nor even those of the EU Farm to Fork strategy. Where it stated a desire to achieve a substantial reduction in pesticide use (-50 percent) and synthetic fertilizers (-20 percent), as well as to stimulate the extension of organic crops to 25 percent of UAA (Utilized Agricultural Area) by 2030.
Non-reform continues to support the big players who had long since boycotted the ecological transition. And ‘most of the €400 billion will continue to come to agro-industrial agriculture, as usual,’ note the European Via Campesina Coordination and Friends of the Earth Europe. (1)
Mutual funds for the few
‘The reform is a missed opportunity to provide small and medium-sized sustainable producers with the adequate political, economic and social support they need,’ explains Andoni García Arriola, a farmer from the Basque Country and a member of the European Via Campesina Coordination.
‘Currently, the average income of farmers in Europe is 50 percent lower than the average income of the population, while less than 2 percent of CAP beneficiaries receive 30 percent of the total direct payment budget. This will not change under the new policy.
Unfortunately, more rural development funds and a collective approach of projects in which peasant agroecology is promoted’ have not been proposed.
Social conditionality and eco-schemes
Proponents of the nonreform point out two seemingly positive changes, the impact of which, however, is different from what is projected:
– ‘Social conditionality,’ that is, blocking payments if workers’ rights are violated. Implementation of this measure, it should be noted, is voluntary until 2025. And only then can the European Commission, following impact assessment, decide to make it mandatory;
– eco-schemes, which were originally supposed to support conversion to organic, instead lend themselves to funding any project ‘cloaked in green.’ The 20 percent of the national envelopes for direct payments, rising to 25 percent from 2025, will thus be dispersed in a thousand rivulets.
The national strategic plans
The new CAP returns centrality to national policies. Member states are required to develop the strategic plans, following the European Commission’s guidelines. Each plan must be received by the European Commission by the end of 2021 for approval by April 2022.
In Italy, meetings of the Partnership Table, chaired by Minister Stefano Patuanelli, on National Strategic Plan priorities do not bode well.
‘We are no longer even facing an attempt at greenwashing, but a real pact for industrial agriculture, which relegates commitments to the environment and labor to the sidelines,’ comment the Associations of the Italian #CambiamoAgricoltura Coalition. (2)
Activists deem the document disappointing and inadequate to address the complex challenges of our agriculture’s ecological transition, ineffective both on the side of combating climate change and halting biodiversity loss.
Notes
(1) European Coordination Via Campesina. Common Agricultural Policy fails small farmers and the environment yet again, 23.11.21 https://www.eurovia.org/common-agricultural-policy-fails-small-farmers-and-the-environment-yet-again/
(2) Italy’s big bluff for the post-2022 common agricultural policy (CAP), 11/22/21 https://feder.bio/grande-bluff-dellitalia-la-politica-agricola-comune-pac-post-2022/
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".
