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Europe’s agriculture policy desperately needs radical reorientation to meet the challenges of the future.
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Slovenia conference: CAP debate explores pressing environmental challenges facing farming
28-05-2008
Today, DOPPS - BirdLife Slovenia and BirdLife International (with the kind support of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the RSPB) organised an international conference on the environmental perspectives of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The conference took an honest look at the sustainability of the CAP and its role in achieving the EU’s environmental objectives relating to climate change, biodiversity loss and growing water shortages. This follows the EC's proposal for the CAP ‘Health Check’ launched last week, and the informal agricultural council this week.
DOPPS - BirdLife Slovenia and BirdLife International presented the case for an urgent overhaul of the CAP, which is widely failing to address environmental challenges and still wasting most of its funding on untargeted measures, often benefiting unsustainable farming practices. During the conference, a new report was launched on the impact of the CAP in the New Member States. The report highlights the massive failure of the CAP in supporting Central, Eastern and Southern European countries, High Nature Value farming systems and its indirect contribution to a new wave of biodiversity loss.
"CAP could be transformed into a sustainable land-use and rural development policy that rewards farmers for the delivery of public goods, such as wildlife habitats and watershed management..." —Ariel Brunner, EU Agricultural Policy Officer at BirdLife International
Ariel Brunner, EU Agricultural Policy Officer at BirdLife International, said: “CAP could be transformed into a sustainable land-use and rural development policy that rewards farmers for the delivery of public goods, such as wildlife habitats and watershed management. Unfortunately, the Commission’s Health Check proposal has missed the opportunity of bringing about this change”
David Blandford, former Head of the Directorate for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Division at the OECD, and guest speaker from Pennsylvania State University, stated: “Widespread experience from across the world shows that targeted agri-environment schemes can be an effective tool in addressing environmental problems, but the current CAP could be better targeted to achieving sustainable farming.”
Jack Thurston, co-founder of Farmsubsidy.org added, “Too often, the debate about farming policy is stuck in the past, looking at past entitlements, past decisions and out-of-date policies. With pressing new challenges like climate change, drought, wildlife loss and food prices that are rising and prone to greater volatility, we cannot afford to be living in the past. Europe’s agriculture policy desperately needs radical reorientation to meet the challenges of the future.”
Slovenia, currently holding the presidency of the EU, has a responsibility for ensuring that the Commission's weak Health Check proposal is improved to address the pressing environmental challenges facing European farming. Slovenia holds some of Europe's best preserved landscapes and biodiversty, with approximately 35% of its territory designated as Natura 2000 protected sites. With a rich environmental heritage, BirdLife expects the Slovenian Government to show leadership in the pursuit of a greener CAP.
In his closing remarks, Andrej Medved, Director of DOPPS-BirdLife Slovenia said, "The Commission has correctly identified the challenges of climate change, biodiversity and water as the main issues for the CAP. But the improvements it is proposing are minimal and will be undermined by the abolishment of the set-aside scheme. We expect the Slovenian presidency to put the environment firmly at the top of their agenda, ensuring that the Health Check does not become yet another missed opportunity."
For the presentations of the conference, please click on the links below:
- Presentation A. Brunner Presentation D. Blandford
- Presentation D. Krajcic
- Presentation M. Scheele
- Presentation P. Gouveia
- Presentation B. Kos
- Presentation C. Keenleyside
- Presentation J. LePage
- Presentation V. Zamecnik
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