Tired traditions of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy

Madeleine Rojahn argues that the EU’s progress towards emissions reduction is being hindered by taboos and political complacency

Bureaucracy, taboos and political complacency – these, rather than intention, are the problems with Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Politicians continue to dawdle in precision farming, manure management, and other gobbledegook, but perhaps they’re missing a point. Is a strong grip on tradition hindering the achievements of climate change mitigation efforts?

Late last year, the European Commission launched its communication paper on CAP reform, stating a focus on implementing new farming technologies and giving more power to individual member states. It notes that tackling emissions requires diversity in strategies, suitable for the diversity in needs of the EU’s 12 million farmers.

Agricultural commissioner Phil Hogan has described the challenges facing farmers today as “immense”. In his speech at the EU’s research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, he said: “They are asked to produce more and better food while using fewer inputs; they are tasked with reducing their environmental footprint; they are expected to meet evolving consumer demands; and they are expected to cope with climate change and volatile global markets.”

Currently, 40% of the EU’s entire budget is spent on the CAP. If the policy is done right, it has the potential to be pivotal in reducing climate change. As achieving the goal of keeping warming below 2°C fades further into the distance, it could be the beacon needed to lead the EU in making decent strides towards emissions reduction.

“The reason why agriculture is important, and why I think it needs to be efficiently addressed by the CAP, is that agriculture contributes 10% to EU greenhouse gas emissions,” says Anna Lorant, policy analyst from the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP).

“Considering the climate mitigation processes, agriculture has a dual role, because it emits greenhouse gases, but at the same time plays a role in removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.” In this latter role, the focus is on increasing efficiency, from managing animal waste to capturing emissions and storing them underground, she says.

To achieve its goal of an 80 to 90% reduction in emissions by 2050, the EU must simultaneously remove emissions from the atmosphere and significantly reduce output. The new CAP discussions show a strong focus on these technologies, but getting them implemented is proving to be a tortuous process.

Support for adopting sustainable farming practices is available via greening funds, of which €2bn a year are dedicated to this purpose, says policy analyst Silvia Nanni, also of IEEP. These funds are supposedly accessible only when farmers meet specific criteria regarding sustainable practices.

But proper reform is stuck in a bureaucratic, convoluted shell, as many farmers find new sustainable practices costly and unfamiliar, and the purpose of greening funds can therefore be lost.

“What we have observed in terms of farmers’ uptake is that sometimes farmers put in place practices that are well known to them, perhaps traditional practices that need updating from a technological point of view,” says Lorant. She adds that it would take several years to map how farmers are adopting sustainable practices.

Tycho Vandermaesen of World Wildlife Fund, an NGO working closely with the EU to reduce climate change, calls greening funds “incredibly weak” and the premises under which they are awarded to farmers “largely unconditional”. Because of these problems, fundamental coherence with other EU environmental policies is lacking, he argues. “The CAP risks subsidising farmers to work against the objectives of the EU acquis [set of rights and obligations], [such as] the EU Water Framework Directive, Birds and Habitats Directives, and Air Quality Directives,” he says, pinpointing for particular blame the CAP’s Direct Payments pillar, of which greening funds make up 30%.

The bureaucratic shell is sealed tighter by the European Parliament’s Agriculture and Rural Development Committee, which is rife with personally invested politicians. Vandermaesen says this is one of the reasons for the CAP’s lack of convincing reform. “Whereas environmental policies are decided upon by environmental ministers and MPs who are typically more aware of the environmental challenges and solutions, this is not the case for the CAP,” he says.

“Agriculture ministers and MEPs, who often have a history in the farming sector, decide the future of a policy in which they may have vested financial interests – in some cases even personally.”

“Their consistencies are also farming communities, who push hard on their representatives to defend a certain line.”

Looking at the current parliamentary board dedicated to negotiations on agricultural policy, it is notable that many MEPs have a personal affinity with the farming sector.

The large farming lobby in both the EU and within individual member states is “a big problem”, says Reinhard den Toom, environmental policy advisor for the Dutch Greens. “They have a lot of power. The problem in the European Parliament is that it’s the agricultural committee that has the lead on this and it is always farmers, or people very close to farmers, on this committee,” he says. “These groups shouldn’t put those kinds of members in these positions, but it is happening, unfortunately.”

Political complacency, and a strong hold on tradition, have diverted many from addressing the ‘elephant in the room’ that is farmed animals – cows, chickens, pigs and sheep – which account for more than half of the EU’s agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.

European animal product consumption patterns are devastatingly costly to the earth, with payments in currencies such as land clearing for livestock grazing and crop growing for livestock feed. To rear 1kg of beef, 15,500 litres of water is needed, while growing 1kg of wheat needs just 1,300 litres. On top of having a higher meat and dairy intake than the global average, Europe is also among the biggest exporters of these products. So meat consumption is an aspect that should be considered, says Nanni, adding that this element “should work synergistically with others in working towards climate mitigation”.

However, Hogan has a contrary perspective. Last year, he told Irish radio channel RTE Radio that “there’s no evidence whatsoever that the intake of these [meat and dairy] products are actually contributing enormously to the emissions”. Hogan himself has a background in agriculture. His perspective may be driven by an empathy for farmers or a desire to protect them from revenue loss. Such factors explain the large counter-campaign from the meat lobby, according to Alexandra Clark, campaigner for Humane Society International, who does not wish to see her own line of reasoning misunderstood.

“Campaigning for reduced consumption is often incorrectly seen as anti-farmer. We support farmers who have high animal welfare and environmental standards,” she says. And she warns that today’s political complacency may economically backfire in the future if policies do not protect traditional sectors, in light of the rising popularity of plant-based diets causing a market shift.

“As more alternatives – such as cultured meat and plant-based ‘meats’ – are introduced in coming years, there must be a policy framework that supports the development and marketing of these new products, but also prevents job losses in more traditional sectors and negative impacts on rural communities that are dependent on animal production,” says Clark.

Whether this will happen is uncertain. Vandemaesen calls the CAP “one of the most challenging policies to work on as an environmental organisation”. The policy’s potential to be pivotal in emissions reduction is stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the hand that is so able, yet so unwilling, to help is being held back by anthropocentric concerns.

Madeleine Rojahn is a freelance journalist

Image credit: Alamy