Month: June 2026

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A CAP built to last: four adjustments towards a durable farm budget

Cora Petrick and Nikolai Pushkarev are associated with the Think Tank Agora Agriculture based in Germany and Brussels.

The proposed reduction in earmarked funding for agriculture in the EU’s next budget has generated significant controversy. Yet, financial pressure on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is not new. Adjusted for inflation and per hectare of agricultural land, the CAP budget has declined by about 40 percent over the past 25 years, as shown in the figure below.

This downward trend could continue in the next budgetary period. Under current proposals, the minimum annual CAP budget per hectare from 2028 onward would be about half the funding level in 2000. The final allocation of EU funding for the CAP will depend on national decisions and the size of the overall EU budget. Even if the CAP budget ultimately turns out to be higher than initially proposed, it is unlikely to reverse the long-term decline.… Read the rest

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Incentivising climate action in Irish agriculture and land use

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of giving an invited talk at the Irish Environmental Protection Agency’s annual Climate Change Conference 2026 in Dublin. My topic was “Incentivising climate action in the agriculture and land use sectors”. Irish agriculture has shown a steady improvement in emissions intensity, but almost no reduction in absolute emissions since 1990. As it accounts for 36% of emissions in the national inventory (excluding energy use and soil emissions), there is an urgent need to adopt lower-emission technologies and to shift to lower-emission land uses at scale.

The key issue I raise is, if we want lower-emissions agriculture and land use in Ireland, then how do we make lower-emissions land use economically viable at farm level? And how do we incentivise that change? Land use systems do not change simply because alternative systems appear environmentally desirable. They change when there are viable markets, reliable income streams, manageable risks, functioning supply chains, and credible long-term incentives.… Read the rest