The European Commission has set the stage for post-2027 CAP reform by committing to cut red tape, balance regulations with incentives and target direct payments to the farmers most in need.

A new roadmap outlined plans to better target CAP funds to who Brussels describes as those “most in need” by shaking up the current CAP’s system of direct payments, with area-based entitlements and the redistribution of larger CAP payments in the crosshairs.

Taking a “fairer” approach to CAP funding would require a switch from “simple per hectare payments” towards more targeted “farm-based supports”, according to European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen.

Further detail on the ideas being explored for CAP beyond 2027 will come when the Commission brings forward its official proposals for the new CAP later this year.

Groups identified as being most in need of funds are small farmers, young farmers, new farmers, mixed farms and those farming in areas of natural constraint.

The new roadmap notes that the “public image of the CAP has been impacted by perceptions of a lack of fairness in the distribution of payments” in some regions.

Commissioner Hansen said that he believes that capping and front-loading reforms introduced under the current CAP have not gone far enough to ensure fairness, with his intention being to push redistribution efforts further in years to come but at a “gradual” pace.

“It is something that was done at the last reform with the famous enrichment of the first hectares, but this is not sufficient,” he commented after the Vision for Agriculture and Food roadmap was published.

“A few hundred euros is not going to make a company, an enterprise, a farm more viable and there I think we need to go a little bit further.

But you can’t step out if a company or a farm has done investments over 20 years and then on a political decision cut everything like it was done before.”

He indicated that the payment of environmental supports should not be subject to the same shake-up of area-based income supports, as the contribution of larger farms to targets is bigger than that of smaller farmers.

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