It is with great sadness that I report to readers of CAP Health Check the sudden and unexpected death of Secondo Tarditi, one of the agricultural policy experts contributing their thoughts to this blog. A fuller appreciation of Secondo’s life and his contribution to European agricultural economics will follow. In the mean time we express our sadness and extend our sympathies to Secondo’s family and friends who are mourning the loss of a talented, vivacious and charming man.… Read the rest
CAP policy instruments and policy goals: cause or effect?
Fellow blogger Wyn Grant presented a paper in Paris last month which presents a wide-ranging overview of the changes in CAP policy instruments since its inception to the present day. His basic thesis is that over time the instruments have changed much more than the objectives and that this does reflect a shift in the content of the CAP and its ultimate goals. He concludes that it is changes in CAP policy which have led to changes in policy instruments, although he does cite some examples where the introduction of new instruments, possibly by creating obvious anomalies, can spark off wider policy debates (trading SFP entitlements, voluntary modulation).… Read the rest
Sarko's hard line could have a paradoxical end
The hard line being taken by France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, on the future of the CAP could have a paradoxical outcome: further re-nationalisation of the policy once seen as the cornerstone of the European Union.… Read the rest
UK farm leader says organic shoppers have 'more money than sense'
In a classic example of how not to win friends and influence people, Peter Kendall, President of the UK National Famers’ Union, has described shoppers who buy organic food as having ‘more money than sense’. In the cover feature of last Saturday’s Financial Times weekend magazine, Kendall takes a swipe at the organic movement and in doing so break the cardinal law of sales: the customer is always right. … Read the rest
UK Parliament slams the CAP
A report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee of the UK Parliament has called for the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy to be replaced by a new “Rural Policy for the EU”. While the committee of MPs, whose job is to shadow the work of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), described the objectives of the CAP as ‘an anachronism’, it reserved its strongest criticism for the UK government itself, which is described as naive and impatient.… Read the rest
Fruit & veg reform could bring health benefits
Seeing through the Commission’s proposal for reform of the fruit and vegetable regime could bring health benefits. With the exception of Greece and Italy no EU member state is currently meeting the World Health Organisation’s recommended consumption rate of 400kg per day per capita. From the viewpoint of Commission officials, getting consumption up to the WHO minimum level would also provide a commercial answer to the sector’s marketing problems.… Read the rest
Sea of Ignorance
A new Eurobarometer survey has found that 72 per cent of respondents considered themselves to be uninformed on agricultural issues and over half (54 per cent) had never heard or read about the CAP. The 43 per cent who claim to have at least some degree of awareness comprises of 34 per cent who say ‘they don’t really know exactly what it is’ and just 9 per cent who say they know ‘exactly what it is’.… Read the rest
69 Ways to Reform the CAP
Analyses of the contents of the Commission’s Health Check Communication have heightened in recent days with the content of the leaked draft document reported in the agriculture press. Of particular interest from an environmental perspective, is the resurgence of the little applied Article 69. This article is housed within the current CAP legislation, Regulation 1782/2003, and allows a Member State to skim off up to ten per cent of the monies to be directed at one sector and provide an additional payment that is targeted at the ‘protection or enhancement of the environment’, or for ‘improving the quality and marketing of agricultural products’.… Read the rest
Cross compliance: tough new standards or money for nothing?
During last week’s furore over trading in CAP subsidy entitlements, the question of what farmers must do in return for their subsidy was raised. In a speech on 6 March 2007 in India, Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said that the CAP’s new Single Farm Payment (SFP) is conditional on farmers observing “tough standards of environmental care, animal welfare and public health”. But a new report from the Institute for European Environment Policy provides some evidence that the conditionality of subsidy payments is something of a mirage. Only in a very small number of cases do the requirements actually exceed what was already required by member states’ pre-existing laws on environmental pollution and animal welfare.… Read the rest
Investors buying up farm subsidies
The past week has seen a series of revelations in the media about the way that decoupled farm subsidies are operating in Scotland. It has become evident that farm subsidy entitlements are being sold by farmers and that investors – who may never have set foot on a farm – are buying up entitlements to claim the new Single Farm Payment, which accounts for the bulk of the European Union’s £48.5 billion Common Agricultural Policy.… Read the rest