Year: 2012

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What is rural development about?

On 1 January 2011, 41% of EU-27 population lived in urban regions, 35% in intermediate regions and only 23% in rural regions, as suggested by the latest release of Eurostat. What is more, the population of urban regions grew by 5.2 per 1000 inhabitants, that of intermediate regions by 2.2‰, while rural regions decreased by 0.8‰ in 2010. These figures are based on a revised urban/rural typology, developed by the European Commission, and are valid for NUTS3 regions. Regions are classified as rural, intermediate or urban based on population density and total population.

However, as expected, individual member states differ significantly regarding the share of their rural population. The largest proportion of the population living in rural areas can be found in Ireland (73%), Slovakia (50%) and Estonia (48%). As another side of the coin, the largest share of the population living in urban areas can be seen in Malta (100%), the United Kingdom (71%) and the Netherlands (71%).… Read the rest

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Latest EU AMS notification confirms declining trend in WTO amber box support

The EU has just submitted its domestic support notification to the WTO for the year 2008/09 (hat tip to LB) and this year there are no surprises. Total support (using the WTO definition) was a shade over €80 billion, but the value of its trade-distorting support (the so-called ‘amber box’, given by its current total Aggregate Measure of Support) fell to its lowest level ever, at just under €12 billion.

In that year, the EU used just over 16% of its Total AMS commitment (its bound ceiling) of €72.2 billion. In other words, the EU could have reduced its AMS commitment by over 80% in that year and would still have fulfilled its WTO amber box obligation.

The AMS includes three main categories of support: direct payments that do not fall under the green or blue boxes as non-exempt direct payments; market price support for products for which an administered price exists; and an equivalent measure of support for those products where the domestic market is supported but where no obvious administered price exists.… Read the rest

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Are the CAP 2013 proposals a major reform?

The economist’s dilemma

Economists evaluating the Commission’s legislative proposals for the CAP post 2013 face a dilemma.

Economists work within a paradigm in which agriculture is an industry no different from any other, where markets by and large do a good job in allocating resources, and where the only justification for government intervention requires both the existence of market failures and demonstrating that governments have access to relevant information or resources which would allow them to address those market failures effectively.

This is an extremely powerful toolkit because it allows economists to distinguish between welfare-enhancing policy interventions and those which are largely about shifting resources and rents from one group to another (the distinction between PERTs and PESTs using Gordon Rausser’s terminology in his well-known 1982 AJAE paper).

Applied to the CAP, this paradigm produces unambiguous policy recommendations: eliminate support to farm incomes, confine public budgets to the purchase of environmental public goods through targeted programmes, and maintain a minimum crisis management capacity to deal with catastrophic risk.… Read the rest

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End the use of export subsidies in the 2013 CAP review

A rather specific feature of the EU’s agricultural policy has been its use of export subsidies to maintain market prices on its domestic market in the past. While the EU was not the only country to make use of this policy mechanism, it accounted for around 90% of global expenditure on formal export subsidies (while arguing that other countries provide export support through more indirect means, such as through state monopoly marketing boards or through food aid).

EU use of export subsidies has fallen dramatically although they still have not disappeared. Total expenditure on export refunds fell from €3.8 billion in 2003 to a projected €139 million set aside in the EU’s draft 2012 budget (at their peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they amounted to €10 billion per year). Pigmeat, poultrymeat, eggs, beef and some non-Annex 1 (that is, processed) food products are now the only beneficiaries.

It is surely time for the EU to renounce the use of this policy instrument in the new CAP after 2013.… Read the rest

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EU biomass targets put pressure on global land resources

There is a now a widespread awareness of the tensions created by mandated EU biofuels targets for global land use and food markets. The requirement that 10% of EU transport fuel should come from renewable sources by 2020 is set out in the Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC adopted by the European Council in April 2009.

The other important target in this Directive is that 20% of the EU’s gross final consumption of energy should come from renewable sources by 2020. Indeed, from a land use and food markets perspective this target could have a potentially greater impact.

While much of this renewable energy in the electricity sector will come from wind, overall by 2020 biomass will remain the most important source of renewable energy in the EU (accounting for 57% of the total, according to an analysis of Member State National Renewable Energy Action Plans undertaken by The Netherland Energy Research Centre and reported in AEBIOM’s 2011 Annual Statistical Report).… Read the rest

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The cost of flat-rate agri-environmental measures

The Commission’s proposals to require shallow, one-size-fits-all, green measures across the EU as a whole in return for a green payment in Pillar 1 have been widely criticised as overly prescriptive, yielding limited environmental benefits (‘greenwash’), administratively complicated for member states and unnecessarily costly in terms of the trade-off with food production.

I reviewed these criticisms in a recent note for the European Parliament’s COMAGRI (link to appear when the note is published shortly). In the note I favoured a continuation of the past CAP reform trajectory in which a larger share of the CAP budget would be shifted to Pillar 2 in order to allow more ambitious and targeted agri-environmental measures (AEM). The apparent unwillingness of the Council of Ministers to countenance a larger Pillar 2 budget (presumably because of the difficulties created by the need for co-financing as well as due to political opposition from farm groups) is the biggest political obstacle to this approach.… Read the rest

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On the complexity of defining active farmers

According to the latest proposals of the European Commission, applicants whose CAP direct payments equal less than 5% of their total receipts obtained from non-agricultural income or failing to provide the minimum land cultivation will be excluded from the provision of direct payments.

This might appear a good definition at first sight but the devil, as always, lies in detail. First of all, it is pretty sure that such a proposal would increase bureaucracy, which is totally against the ‘cutting the red-tape’ principle of the Commission. Just imagine how this system would be implemented for each and every farm in Europe. Second, some argue that this definition would exclude part-time farmers but this is not entirely true. As the definition would not apply to small farmers (receiving less than €5000), the latter argument only holds for those part-time farmers not participating in the small farmers scheme, the number of which is limited for sure.… Read the rest

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Basic Direct Payments for EU Farmers: The Proposal of the Commission of the EU

Direct payments are the most important budget outlay

EU expenditure on Agriculture and Rural Development makes up a high share of total EU expenditure. The share was – according to official information – 41 per cent of total EU expenditure in 2011 and amounted to €55.269 billion. The position ‘Direct Payments’ was the most important budget outlay during the present Financial Framework with €39.771 billion in 2011; it made up a share of 72 per cent of the total expenditure on Agriculture and Rural Development.

This budget item came into existence in 1993 as the Council of Agricultural Ministers had decided in 1992 to reduce the intervention prices for grain by about 33 per cent and to also reduce the support price for oilseeds. It was a widely held agreement in 1992 that farmers should be fully compensated for the income loss incurred from the price cut. This item grew over time as institutional prices for other agricultural products had to be reduced due to international pressure.… Read the rest

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Who cares about capping?

According to the latest proposals of the European Commission, the amount of support from the basic payment scheme received per farm would be limited to €300,000 per year. Payments higher than €150,000 will be subject to progressive reductions but the costs of salaries in the previous year can be deducted before these reductions apply.

Several critiques appear regarding capping. As recognised by many, it would further weaken the anyway decreasing competitiveness of European large farms by creating a discriminative instrument in the provision of direct payments. It is also contradictory to the economies of scale (and efficiency) as well as would significantly increase bureaucracy, which is totally against the ‘cutting the red-tape’ principle of the Commission. Moreover, it might also result in a splitting of farms, which would have serious consequences to the European agricultural sector and would not be ethically fair either. Another rather theoretical reasoning state that direct payments serve as a remuneration for the production of public goods, produced on small farms and large farms alike, meaning that capping is against the equal production of public goods.… Read the rest

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Evolving alliance for saving the status quo

France has played an extremely active role during the past few weeks to create a strong alliance aiming to save the status quo in the future of the CAP. Bruno Le Maire, the French Farm Minister has proved himself to be successful in persuading his German, Spanish and Italian colleague to help France maintaining the CAP as it is.
Starting on 30 January, Mr. Le Maire met Mario Catania, the Italian Farm Minister to discuss the future of the CAP. Both ministers declared the existence of a ‘strong convergence’ between French and Italian opinions in the debate and asserted that the two countries will safeguard each other’s interests in the main issues like fund distribution or the ‘milk package’ in the future.

Having Italy as an ally, Mr. Le Maire moved further to Germany to meet his colleague Ilse Aigner to discuss the Commission’s proposals for the future CAP. The outcome is a two-page declaration nearly stating that the CAP should remain as it is.… Read the rest