Major changes needed if CAP is to be made fit for purpose

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is not fit for purpose, according to a new study co-commissioned by the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament.

The study was commissioned and funded by: BirdLife Europe; the European Environmental Bureau (EEB); Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU); the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig; Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ; the University of Göttingen; and the Greens/EFA and Socialists & Democrats groups in the European Parliament.

The key findings of the report, for which the authors assessed 450 peer reviewed scientific papers, are:

• The socio-economic efficiency of the CAP is very low. The decrease in numbers of agricultural holdings continues, with a trend towards large-scale farms. With 32% of payments going to 1,5% of farms, the CAP provides insufficient support to small farms
• The CAP is largely inefficient regarding its environmental objectives. The CAP does not halt, let alone reverse, ongoing trends of agricultural intensification, abandonment, environmental degradation and biodiversity decline. It has a very limited effect on climate change mitigation.

See the links on the right for the full report, a briefing, and an executive summary.