The European Commission’s proposals for the post-2027 CAP signal an intention to attempt to strike a new balance between the mandatory environmental requirements imposed on farmers and incentives to those looking to go beyond these compulsory standards.

In a major departure from previous agri-environmental schemes, the Commission has said that agri-environmental measures should reward farmers instead of just having payment rates that were set using the cost incurred income foregone model deployed in previous schemes.

Specific mention is made in its proposals around a need for member states to incentivise organic farming and the extensification of livestock systems.

The proposals further reference a particular need to support extensification efforts in areas affected by water pollution due to nitrate surplus, saying that payments in these regions should back farmer diversification to other agricultural activities.

Brussels’ plans provide little detail on which sorts of measures member states could use CAP funds to pay farmers to undertake between 2028 and 2032, aside from outlining five broad environmental areas that measures should cover.

These are climate change adaptation and water resilience, climate change mitigation, soil health, biodiversity, organic farming and animal health and welfare.

Indications from discussions at member state level are that the CAP regulations should be as flexible as possible to allow individual countries decide which actions would suit their farmers the best.

It is also proposed that eco schemes will be merged with whatever agri-environmental scheme takes over from Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) from 2028 onwards.

The new format of CAP environmental schemes allows for both annual or multi-year measure options.

This opens the door to Ireland designing the schemes that take over from the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) and the Sheep Improvement Scheme (SIS) on a one-year application basis in addition to providing payment options that would span the whole CAP period.

Brussels’ plans would also allow countries to compensate farmers for any management obligations they must undertake due to the Habitats Directive, Birds Directive or Water Framework Directive.

However, unlike the schemes that are to replace ACRES and eco schemes, any of these payments are to be based on the costs incurred and income foregone arising from compliance with the directives.

What’s missing?

While the content of the proposals for CAP and the next long-term EU budget address agri-environmental schemes, the introduction of any standalone funding for achieving the EU Nature Restoration Law targets was absent.

The law had committed to providing interested farmers with voluntary “financially attractive” nature restoration schemes, for which possible losses of income can come from a wide range of sources, including EU funds.

A minimum ‘green’ spending target of 35% is sought from the Commission regarding EU funds in the 2028-2034 budget, with a target of 43% of funds applying to the ‘single fund’ into which the CAP budget is to be merged, but no ringfenced Nature Restoration Law fund has been created.