Approximately 40% of the European budget is allocated to agriculture and rural development. On average, each European citizen contributes 114 euros per year to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is the largest European budget. European agriculture is at a turning point.
The new CAP (2021-2027) can bring about change and will influence how farmers produce the food we consume.
In the upcoming elections, our vote will decide the future of European agriculture: whether to continue supporting the industrialization of agriculture to the benefit of international finance or to redirect aid towards local, environmentally friendly farming.
Europe must stop funding hectare-based agro-industry for export and instead support organic and local agriculture for employment and rural development. We are what we eat, so the European priority should be to support sustainable agriculture for healthy products.
Today, the CAP does not support small farms but favors large ‘operators’ for international markets and contributes to the social downgrading of agriculture (a euphemism known as dumping).
The primary risk of the CAP is that it could disappear and be redistributed by each State: nationalists want to eliminate Europe’s only integrated policy. Under the guise of bureaucratic disdain, it would be a disaster for French agriculture. This is why the Greens (the European Green group) are determined to support and change the CAP.
Laurent LANQUAR-CASTIEL, EE-LV
