Commission wants to double young farmer numbers

The European Commission has announced that it wants to double the proportion of farmers aged below 40 across the EU over the next 15 years.

European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen unveiled a strategy for generational renewal on Tuesday that he claims sets out the roadmap needed to increase the sector’s proportion of young farmers to 24% .

The strategy looks to the next CAP for most of the young farmer supports it refers to, stating that member states will be advised to allocate at least 6% of their direct payment funding to young farmers.

It also calls on EU countries to remove the barriers to land facing young farmers, with subsidised loans, pre-emption rights and “dedicated matching mechanisms” linking younger farmers up with retiring farmers all listed as measures the Commission sees as having the potential to lower the sector’s age profile.

Brussels called on member states to tackle non-farmer interests in the land market, saying they should “act against speculative acquisitions and land grabbing to keep land available for farming”.

The strategy acknowledges a lack of access to land, prohibitively high farmland costs in regions of the EU and hefty repayment bills on borrowings as major barriers to young farmers without inherited land getting established in their own right.

It tells members states to assess establishing public land banks to “manage and repurpose abandoned or fragmented land, easing access for young farmers or new entrants”.

It states that previously announced plans to create an EU farmland observatory will shine a light into the land market by bringing transparency to land transactions, prices and market trends.

Pensioners

A “joint discussion with member states” is also listed as an action for 2026 intended to “support the linking direct payments with pension age”.

The Commission announced its intent to force farmers of retirement age into choosing between a state pension and scheme payments from 2032 onwards when it published its official proposals for the next CAP.