Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan has today fired the starting gun for debate on the future of food and farming in Europe as he launches a 12-week public consultation [1] on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Welcoming this public consultation, EEB EU Policy Director Pieter de Pous said:

“This is an excellent opportunity to show the European Commission that a fundamental CAP reform is urgently needed. We can’t simply tinker round the edges and make small cosmetic changes to the policy this time. Most of the CAP budget supports the farms that pollute the most. [2] We need broad participation in this consultation to highlight that the current agricultural policy is inadequate for today’s societal challenges.” [3]

EEB Policy Manager for Agriculture and Bioenergy Faustine Bas-Defossez said:

“It’s time to move away from wasteful farming which is damaging to the environment, people, and farmers themselves. EU farm policy should only support those farmers who go the extra mile to farm in an environmentally friendly way. For a farm to be able to continue producing nutritious food in the long run, it needs healthy soil, clean water and insects to pollinate its crops.”

Notes for editors:

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/FutureCAP

[2] Around 70% of payments still go to around just 30% of the biggest and most polluting farmers. Read more in Spotlight on EU farm policy.

[3] Greening measure to protect nature on farms will be environmentally ineffective, new study shows, 29 November 2016