land management – CAP Reform

Last Monday saw the launch of a report “CAP – thinking out of the box” by the Rural Investment Support for Europe (RISE) Foundation. The report director was Allan Buckwell and the other contributors to the report are Erik Mathjis, David Baldock and myself. The report is a response to the public consultation on the modernisation and simplification of the CAP launched by Commissioner Phil Hogan in February.
Below, I reproduce a short summary of the key messages of the report.

Further adaptation of the CAP is necessary to help EU farming become a well-structured industry which is economically viable and environmentally sustainable. The next 15 years will see a generational turnover amongst farmers as millions of farmers already over 60 retire. The new generation have before them the exciting challenge of embracing the wealth of new technology based on precision, digitisation, big data and even robotics which when applied to plant and animal genetics and nutrition can raise their productivity, and thus incomes, and equip them to combine Europe’s high quality food production with high and rising environmental performance as they steward our natural resources.

… Read the rest

We are delighted to bring you this guest post by Professor Ian Hodge of the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge on the topic of UK policy towards agricultural land after Brexit. The views expressed are his own and should not be attributed to any organisation with which he is associated.

Brexit requires the United Kingdom to develop its own policy towards agriculture and rural land to replace the Common Agricultural Policy. This must recognise the multiple benefits and costs associated with rural land use and promote the integrated management of rural land in the long term public interest through a British Ecosystem Services Policy (BESP).

The UK must have a new policy for rural land

Over the past forty three years, agriculture in the UK has been subject to the guidance and control of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). As it has lurched from crisis to crisis, it has evolved from a policy focussed primarily on securing European food security through intervention in agricultural commodity markets towards a broader-based, more nationally differentiated policy concerned with the support of farm incomes and the promotion of sustainable farming.… Read the rest

Tag: land management

CAP – out of the box thinking

We need a British Ecosystem Services Policy not a British Agricultural Policy