Editorial: refocusing CAP but not at the expense of the environment

The ongoing war in Ukraine has exposed severe flaws in EU policy on food and energy security – most having stemmed from a deeply rooted view in Brussels and across member states that the production of food and energy could be globalised in the same way as the manufacturing of an aircraft. Conveniently from an EU perspective, this belief gave credibility to a strategy of outsourcing two emission-intensive industries in a bid to achieve ambitious environmental targets – the most recent of these detailed within the EU Green Deal that committed to the highly ambitious target of making Europe a net-zero emitter of greenhouse gases by 2050.

Balancing ambition

Given the urgent need to tackle climate change, the EU’s drive to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions cannot be faulted. But where criticism is warranted is the extent to which policymakers ignored the need to balance environmental ambition for agriculture alongside protecting food security.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the evolution of the CAP over the past 10 to 15 years. Successive reforms have seen support for food production sacrificed as policymakers sought to deliver increased environmental measures on the cheap – by raiding the CAP budget rather than introducing new environmentally focused funding mechanisms.

Raid on direct supports

The most recent CAP reform represented the final leg in this journey, with the further flattening of area-based payments and the funding of eco-schemes through the raiding of direct income supports in Pillar 1 both combining to completely repurpose the CAP into a suite of environmental policies with a complete disregard for the impact on food production.

The obvious question is how credible is it for such a reform to be implemented as planned in 2023 – a year when the consequences of this ongoing war on global food and fertiliser markets could be even more severe than at present?

Change in direction

Earlier this week, European commissioner for agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski acknowledged that agriculture has become a “crucial security policy” as he recognised the need to ensure sufficient agricultural production. It is a significant change in direction for a commissioner who has continuously sought to undermine intensive farming systems and has championed a policy agenda, through Farm to Fork, which has been shown to reduce EU food production and increase reliance on imports.

It is a fact that was picked up on by French president Emmanuel Macron who has called for the Farm to Fork strategy to be adjusted and refocused on food production. The views of the French president echo those of Norbert Lins, chair of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee and a once staunch advocate of flat area-based payments. This week he said food security should be our No1 agenda with the focus on driving production.

New reality

Clearly the measures within the new CAP, focused on flat area-based payments and environmental schemes, are not aligned to the new realisation dawning within Brussels. While some may argue that the renewed focus on food production is temporary, the reality is that the impact of the unlawful invasion of Ukraine by Russia on food and energy security will far outlast the lifetime of the next CAP. There will be no quick return to normality regardless of how long the war lasts. The reintroduction of direct production-linked supports will be a key element if a future CAP is to tackle global food security and underpin food production.

But the need to refocus the CAP should not be seen as an opportunity to dismiss many of the positive and necessary environmental measures contained within the new policy framework. The urgent need to reduce the environmental footprint of food production, in a bid to tackle climate change, must remain. In many instances, the regions most exposed to food insecurity and food inflation are those most exposed to the effects of global warming.

Optimising food production

Instead, a debate urgently needs to take place on how policy can be refocused to support EU farmers in optimising the food production capacity of Europe while also rewarding those with a land type or farming systems that deliver an enhanced environmental dividend.

But for the debate to be credible, there must be an acceptance that trying to deliver this outcome within the existing CAP budget is not possible. As member states have rushed to commit increased funding to defence and energy polices, the same need must be recognised if food security is to be delivered in line with reducing the environmental footprint of EU food production.

Tillage: with the tillage land area increasing, where will the yields be?

The tillage scheme announced by Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue is a step in the right direction. From our reader survey, it appears that the target of an additional 25,000ha of tillage will be needed to boost fodder supplies; 36% of farmers have not bought any fertiliser while 72% plan to buy less fertiliser than usual.

Farmers can use the tillage scheme to grow high-yielding fodder crops, maximize slurry use and fill feed deficits. However, we must keep specialist tillage farmers with the experience in business too. Access to land is a huge issue and before the scheme, many tillage farmers were not securing their usual complement. Our survey shows the area is not likely to change much from this cohort of farmers. Worryingly, 64% of tillage farmers surveyed plan to cut back on nutrient use. Yields are likely to reduce as a result.

The minister needs to consider what steps can be taken to ensure specialist tillage farmers can produce maximum yielding crops.