Farmers who fulfill them voluntarily will receive financial compensation
Farms under 100 decares will not be subject to inspections and sanctions
European Commission (EC) is finalizing a series of legislative proposals that would seriously weaken environmental demands on farmers—contrary to the advice of its leading scientists that agriculture must become more sustainable or be wiped out by climate change.
The proposals would remove the requirement to set aside land to promote biodiversity, making this and other measures – such as minimizing tillage to prevent soil erosion – voluntary. Taken together, they would allow farmers to receive EU subsidies even if they do not meet the most basic environmental standards known as DES.
The dramatic reversal of policy by Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission comes at the insistence of national governments desperate to quell protests by farmers who have taken to the streets across Europe and in Brussels to vent their anger at environmental red tape. an environment that they say is destroying their livelihoods, writes Politico.
“Eliminating decades of incremental progress towards sustainable agriculture for a short-term election is a huge mistake and the whole society will pay a high price,” said Marco Contiero, Greenpeace’s EU agriculture campaigner.
“Farmers are experiencing serious hardship, but these proposals do little to address this and simply remove some of the last shreds of environmental protection in EU agricultural policy.”
Conditionality
The CAP includes a set of “good agricultural and environmental conditions” — or GECs — that farmers must meet in order to receive subsidies.
The EU executive will propose removing obligations for four of them and instead provide financial compensation to farmers who voluntarily implement them.
— DESA 5 — requiring farmers to minimize tillage to prevent soil erosion.
— DESA 6 — requiring farmers to grow cover crops between seasons to conserve soil, water and nutrients, thereby reducing the need to apply chemicals such as fertilizers.
— DESA 7 — requiring farmers to grow a series of different types of crops in the same area over a series of growing seasons. This helps return nutrients to the soil without synthetic additives and reduces the need for chemical pesticides.
— DESS 8 — requiring farmers to set aside at least 4 percent of their farmland for biodiversity.
Other measures
Other measures to be proposed by the Commission include:
— Exemption for farmers with less than 10 hectares of land — two-thirds of all CAP beneficiaries — from inspections and sanctions.
To strengthen the position of farmers vis-à-vis wholesalers, retailers and other actors in the supply chain, the Commission will also:
— Launch of “Observatory on Production Costs, Margins and Trade Practices” until the summer to increase market transparency. The observatory will consist of representatives from all sectors of the agri-food supply chain, as well as EU and national officials.
— Study of possible revisions of several market regulations including the Common Market Organization (CMO), which sets the basic rules for the EU’s single market, and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, which aims to protect weaker suppliers from stronger buyers.
Let the elections pass
No need to worry, say politicians stalling environmental reforms.
“The measures … do not weaken the CAP’s climate and environmental ambition,” the Commission said in a statement last week.
In the draft measures, the Commission argued that farmers would be able to meet the CAP’s environmental targets in a “more realistic” way. EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said this week that the bloc could step up green efforts once the frenzy surrounding June’s European Parliament elections dies down.
One EU diplomat told Politico that the measures would undo a legacy of overzealous environmental activism by people like Frans Timmermans, a former Commission vice-president and architect of the Green Deal who left Brussels last year to return to national politics in his native Netherlands .
“This legislative period has been extremely focused on just one pillar of sustainability, the environment, but we also need economic and social prosperity,” said the diplomat, who was granted anonymity to speak freely.
“It’s not about rejecting the Green Deal, it’s about talking to farmers about how to achieve it.”
The diplomat added that environmental requirements can be restored when the economic condition of farmers improves.
#backed #green #requirements #farmers #ETS #mandatory
