An open letter to the European Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloş published by the financial daily La Tribune, highlights the concerns of a score of French and European organisations over the proposed changes to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which have been in circulation.

As announced in the outline financial plans for the years 2014-2020, which were released at the end of June, the European Commission intends to link the payment of 30% of the direct subsidy to environmental measures. According to a first leaked draft which is to be finalised and will be presented on October 12, this “greening” of direct payments would be based on farmers meeting three requirements:

•    Crops diversification: to have three different crops growing on arable land, of which the main one should not exceed 70% and the two others should cover a minimum of 5%; apart from these maximum and minimum percentages, this is already a requirement of the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC in English, BCAE in French) and is also part of France’s Agro-Environnmental Measures;

•    Preservation of permanent grasslands, while allowing up to 5% to be ploughed up in case of force majeure; this provision already exists in the French BCAE regulations, without any percentage being stipulated for turning land over to arable use;

•    Ecological Focus Areas: at least 7% of total useable land should be covered, either lying fallow, or terraced, according to the characteristics of the land concerned, or kept as grass field borders or wooded areas. This measure to promote biodiversity has existed in French BCAE requirements, at a rate of 3% in 2011, with the government’s intention at the outset of this scheme to raise the rate to 5% in 2013.

Reckoning that these measures might be a bit ambitious in the light of the European Commission’s communication on the reform of the CAP between now and 2020, a score of NGOs have thus alerted Commissioner Cioloş.

“To the Agriculture Commissioner:
Sir,
The CAP reform of 1992 made the subsidies paid to different holdings visible. This transparency has fed a debate on the purposes of the CAP in the context where the wider social dimensions of agriculture have been increasingly brought to the fore, clarifying the choices that need to be made. Keep things simple. On one side there is the option to continue with an industrial agriculture that is continuing full steam ahead and which adapts by correcting only its most obvious defects and crises. On the other side there is ecological agriculture, which values natural environments, local genetic resources and employment. Four facts arise from this:

1: These two models are in direct competition and their co-existence leads the former to marginalise the latter, as well as assuming its appearance of ecological agriculture while altering the underlying structure.

2: The supposed economic superiority of the industrial agriculture model is only possible with heavy public funding, emergency intervention packages in the event of a crisis and the disowning of costs that are sustained by the environment and public health. Without this strong public funding, industrial agriculture would lose money and it this is also the case for holdings where the owners give up because the running costs are too high.

3: A growing number of case studies now reckon that industrial agriculture no longer has the capability of feeding the world, contradicting what its advocates would like to believe: what is more, it does rather more than just disorganise localised food production systems.

4: Production while managing the environment properly is not an economic aberration – on the contrary, it is the best insurance policy for the future of farmers themselves, European citizens and peasants all over the world. For 20 years now, subjected to the pressure of specific interest groups, successive CAP reforms have remained unachieved, notably on the environmental level. Your arrival in the post of Agriculture Commissioner gave hope to the defenders of a diverse and ecologically vision for European agriculture. The broad consultation launched in spring 2010 on the future of the CAP allowed us to hope for a renewal of the targets and tools. The place given to the environment, rural innovation, as well as small farms, gave us hope to believe that at last the measure and gravity of the problems had been understood. The Communication of the European Commission in November 2010 was ambivalent, but it announced some aspects of greening for direct subsidies, which make up 80% of the CAP budget.

Now, the form of the reform is starting to be defined. And what starts to come out of the Commission offices is worse than disturbing. What has happened to the so-called “greening” of the first pillar? It has been downgraded to a reworking of unambitious measures that have been drafted so that no-one will be upset and the ultimate purpose of [the greening measures] is give the CAP a degree of environmental legitimacy. What happened to targeted subsidies for holdings that were proactively environmentally friendly? Stillborn. It is not even the status quo ante, there is potentially a real risk of turning back the clock: existing ambitious initiatives are at risk of being choked off and certain measures are potentially dangerous. The same applies for rural development policy: we observe a heavy dilution of any environmental priorities and any notion of a minimum budgetary percentage for environmental work has been abandoned. Far from being a goad to change the ways of most member states, the European Union has become an advocate of the lowest common denominator.

We wish to alert European citizens as to what the European Commission is preparing for the coming years. This superficial “greening”, or rather “greenwashing” has largely been supported by France, which is “…prudent when it comes to greening…” in the words of French prime minister François Fillon. In its present form, the  reform would succeed in legitimising subsidies for agricultural holdings which contribute to the further degradation of the environment . Its structures would also marginalise those who work in sensitive ways to supply sustainable food, maintaining the quality of both the landscape and the environment  as well as maintaining employment. Such a waste of public money is as irresponsible as it is unacceptable. We are alarmed by the proposed CAP reforms from the Commission in which the ecological foundations of agriculture are denied and sacrificed to an industrial approach to agriculture. It is our duty to remind of the ambitions that you had at the outset of the CAP reform process: it is time to submit credible and ambitious options to Europe’s leaders, ones that meet the expectations of European citizens and would also save the future of agriculture and farmers. In all its previous forms until now, the CAP has not been capable of preserving jobs nor the environment: this is starting to get on our nerves.”

Signatories:

Agir pour l’Environnement, Dominique Bernard, Président

BirdLife Europe, Angelo Caserta, Directeur régional

Bureau Européen de l’Environnement, Jeremy Wates, Secrétaire général

Chrétiens dans le Monde Rural, Xavier Bonvoisin, Président

Dossiers et Débats pour le Développement Durable (4D), Joseph Racapé, Administrateur

Fédération Nationale d’Agriculture Biologique, Dominique Marion, Président

Fondation pour la Nature et l’Homme, Cécile Ostria, Directrice générale

Forum Européen pour la Conservation de la Nature et le Pastoralisme, Xavier Poux, Directeur

FNCIVAM, Didier Lorioux, Président

France Nature Environnement, Bruno Genty, Président

Générations Futures, François Veillerette, Porte-parole

Greenpeace France, Sylvain Tardy, Directeur de campagnes

IFOAM EU Group, Marco Schlüter, Directeur

Les Amis de la Terre France, Martine Laplante, Présidente

Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux, Allain Bougrain Dubourg, Président

Mouvement Rural de Jeunesse Chrétienne, Jérémie Godet, Président

Pesticide Action Network, Simon Gergely, Directeur

Réseau Action Climat-France, Sandrine Mathy, Présidente

Réseau Cohérence, Armina Knibbe, Présidente

Union Nationale de l’Apiculture Française, Olivier Belval, Président

WWF France, Serge Orru, Directeur général

In his Communication on the CAP towards 2020 launched on November 18 2010, Dacian Cioloş proposed: “…to establish an upper limit for payments made to large farms, so as to share out the payments better between farmers.”

Applying a ceiling on the subsidies for the largest farms is a sensitive subject for the EU’s farm ministers. In previous CAP reforms, a majority of them always opposed the Commission on this question, be it in 1992, 1998 or 2002.

Not surprisingly, last March several of them – Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Romania, the UK and Slovakia – resolutely refused any ceiling on subsidies, arguing that holdings need to be competitive. [more]

Public statement published March 30 on leMonde.fr

The environmental problems linked to certain agricultural practices have been made public by scientists and farmers since the 1970s. And in 1983, the environment ministry even decreed “urgent action for water in Brittany.” [The current farm minister] Bruno Le Maire would like to convince us that his ministry has turned the corner for the environment…

Lack of coherence and political will

Even if the Grenelle [environmental package] marked a step in the right direction, the president of the Republic’s words [March 2010 in a round table at the Paris farm show] set off a rebuttal of the environmental agenda when Nicolas Sarkozy said: “I would like to say a word on all these environmental questions. Because that, too, is starting to be too much. (…ça commence à bien faire…)” [These words are normally used to rebuke misbehaving children.] The French state relinquished its headline commitment to environmental measures in agriculture with an announcement in August of a “…moratorium on environmental obligations.” The head of state should not therefore have subsequently obfuscated over his use of that telling phrase and the increasingly animated reactions to it that are making themselves heard. [more]

The European Commission’s communication of November 18, 2010 put forward a series of proposals concerning direct payments made under Pillar 1. Among them, notably, figure the introduction of an ecological component in the form of four measures quoted by way of examples. These were crop rotations, permanent pastures, green cover and an environmental set aside.

In the first place, a proposal that is intended to introduce an environmental element arises from three strands of the debate, namely:

(1) to legitimise disputed subsidies in Pillar 1 of the CAP after 2013 (policymaking)
(2) to secure the budgetary return for certain member states (finances)
(3) to renew the ways in which environment [environmental policy] is integrated [and coherent with] the CAP (governance)

Agriculture ministers divided on the subject

Those in favour of a greener policy argue that it is essential to legitimise subsidies made under the first pillar to justify continued payments on the CAP. Nevertheless, this question is crystalising more rapidly in member states like France, which have retained a Single Payment Scheme based on historic reference subsidies. The resulting distribution of subsidies between farmers remains unfair.

On the other hand, some member states opted for a regionally-based progressive redistribution of subsidies on a regional basis. Others will be sharing out pooled subsidies from 2013 onwards. Neither group sees any of the advantages in the greening as proposed by the Commission. Following the German pattern, they are questioning the need for a supposedly more complex structure, when Germany argues that it would be enough to improve the current rules, namely cross compliance and agri-environmental measures.

On January 24 2011, the Council of Farm Ministers concluded its deliberations on this argument, saying that: “Certain delegations subscribed to the Commission’s suggestion to make the first pillar the main environmental element of the CAP, while others registered a preference that environmental measures should be kept within the Pillar 2 and rural development.”

More recently, the Hungarian presidency on March 17 responded to the refusal of seven member states, including the UK and Sweden to accept these conclusions in the council’s name. The Hungarian presidential view was: “…that the CAP already includes some significant environmental measures and supports the concept of greening the CAP to 2020; underlines that all additional greening would be simple and have good cost-effectiveness; should avoid falling into the middle ground between the pillars and should be based on the experience of the green measures in the existing CAP.”

Here are four ways of thinking of “greening” in the CAP

To sum up, the first two broadly support the Commission’s position, which consists of trying to restore the legitimacy of the CAP’s Pillar 1:

(1) The convergence of environmental standards in the name of conditionality (eg: Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions - GAEC - and Statutory Management Requirements - SMR) between the 27 member states and the simplification of the administrative procedures. This approach is defended by the French farm minister and supported by the national syndicate of farmers’ unions, the FNSEA, not allowing any redistribution of subsidies under Pillar 1.

(2) The targeting of a significant part of Pillar 1 direct subsidies (at least 50%) on agriculture that protects and maintains the environment (organic agriculture; agriculture with high natural value, Natura 2000 zones). This approach is advocated by the European environmental NGOs.

On the other hand, two other options refuse the Commission’s approach, favouring a greening of the CAP through Pillar 2, thus:
(3) Strengthening the agri-environmental measures with a larger financial transfer from Pillar 1 (European Agricultural Guarantee Fund) towards the rural development policy (European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development). This approach is supported, notably, by the UK which considers that the Pillar 1 of the CAP has no future: this country also supports heavy cuts in agricultural budgets.

(4) The obligation to choose at least two “green” measures in Pillar 2 to receive direct subsidies from Pillar 1. This so-called “catalogue” approach is supported by the Member of the European Parliament Albert Dess, but above all contested within the parliament: it aims to support the co-financing of greening by additional modulation and by member states.

The contribution of the French environment ministry (MEEDDM) to the debate on the post 2013 CAP has sparked a torrent of reactions from the agricultural world. Most of them are hostile.

In an authoritarian manner, the national farmers’ unions and cooperatives representatives rejected “…a split in institutional conduct…” (FNSEA); denounced the lack of “…any realistic economic vision” (Coop de France); wondered “…Who speaks on behalf of France?” (APCA) or criticised a “parisian piece of thinking” (national Young Farmers’ association JA).

In this chorus of criticism, only the peasant organisation Conféderation paysanne greeted “…a brilliant advance [to] link public subsidies to the worker and employment.” Which really is something.

Should the CAP in France really be the exclusive preserve of the agricultural ministry and the agricultural world? In the eyes of the FNSEA or APCA, environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo and secretary of state Chantal Jouanno are not the right people to express their views on the future of the CAP in public. In France, the CAP is a very sensitive subject in the eyes of the deeply conservative agricultural world and one which is not compatible with the Grenelle environmental charter [which the MEEDDM ministerial is in charge of implementing].

Proposals for a strong and ambitious CAP…

However, these two members of the government argue in favour of a strong and ambitious CAP in the letter that accompanies their proposals:

“In our country, agriculture plays a fundamental rôle in the areas of the economy, social policy, environmental policy, health policy and cultural policy. The sustainable development of France as well as Europe, is closely linked to the future of our agriculture.

In particular, major disruption in the environment is a threat to the sustainability of agriculture, whether one considers climate change, the loss of biodiversity, increasingly lifeless soils or low level background pollution. Certain agricultural systems are capable of contributing to this threat.

Agriculture, because it is an activity which has the greatest potential impact on terrestrial ecosystems – it occupies 60% of the national territory – can play a part in setting right the ecological challenges that we face. This rôle would, moreover, be one of the justifications for a strong and ambitious CAP.”

…removed from the environment ministry’s website!

The mounting pressure put on the environment ministry finally led to these proposals being taken down from the MEEDDM website, just one week after they went live.

Several associations responded with a statement (in French) to welcome: “…proposals which set the foundations for a renewed and re-legitimised CAP…” and to denounce the fact that, “…after the FNSEA press release, the proposals should have been taken down from the MEEDDM website,” regretting strongly “…the disappearance which harms public knowledge of a document that is necessary to inform the public.”

These associations underlined the interest in the following proposals:

“to put in place the objective of an agriculture and food policy that would make Europe more autonomous and which would respect the food security [autonomy] of other countries: « The vocation of the European Union is not to feed the world » but to meet its own needs as a priority, notably in the matter of animal feedstuffs, where it has a deep deficit;”

“to make agricultural policy fairer, by establishing criterial for sharing [agricultural] subsidies that are genuinely social and environmental: the end of historic reference prices, the strengthening of good environmental practices, the weighting of aids through employment and proper funding for general environmental benefits (eg organic agriculture, certification of “Haute Valeur Environnementale” (HVE), permanent pasturelands…) and territorial support (eg less favoured regions, farming with high natural value (HNV))

The environment ministry contribution to the debate on the CAP after 2013 remains available to the public [in French] on our website.

MEEDDM (Ministère de l’Écologie, de l’Énergie, du Développement Durable et de la Mer) is the French environment ministry. It is responsible for the environment, sustainable development and the sea.

The French Ministry of Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and the Sea (MEEDDM) has recently published a document with its proposals for the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Entitled For A Sustainable Agricultural Policy In 2013, Principles, Architecture And Financial Elements, the proposals bring a new impetus to the CAP debate in France.

Since the 2008 French EU presidency, politicians and agricultural decisionmakers have been in the habit of saying that the political debate of the post-2013 CAP should precede any discussion of its budget. MEEDDM brings the two back together.

MEEDDM justifiably reckons that: “...keeping a strong CAP is justified when it contributes to establishing sustainable agriculture at a European level.” With this view in mind, it proposes new financial measures and balances to:

(1) an equitable CAP allowing all those working in agriculture to earn a decent revenue in all production systems;
(2) a coherent CAP that will pay for the environmental services that agriculture provides, while limiting its impact on the environment and their on-costs.
(3) a dynamic CAP that allows a transition to an ecologically productive agriculture promoting projects at territorial and sectorial (chains) levels.

A new CAP architecture

MEEDDM suggests a new architecture, reckoning that: “the two pillar configuration is inherited from a period during which the markets were at the heart of the CAP, while a secondary source of funding – the second pillar – was intended to correct a certain number of impacts on the environment and the land.” In this way, the policy tools would be organised into three levels of payments:

(1) the guarantee of a stable revenue base for those living and farming with sustainable resources,based on a twin justification of social and environmental grounds (first level);
(2) the payment of environmental services that are rendered by agricultural production systems that are put in place (second level);
(3) support for the agricultural and ecological transition of businesses by farmers, with the help of other actors in the production chains and territorial organisations (third level).

A new key to financial shares

The added value of the document rests on its proposals to finance the CAP: MEEDDM does not hesitate to put forward a new key to sharing the financing according to the three levels:

(1) Three billion euros a year on the first level, which would be topped up with variable sumes of additional national co-funding;
(2) Four billion euros a year on the second level, which would pay for environmental services in the public interest and be 100% funded by the EU;
(3) Two billion euros on the third level which would be cofinanced by different stakeholders (national, regional and private) and in which EU funding would act as a lever;
(4) Half a billion euros on the food section and a further half billion on the safety nets and market management.

If the absence of a proposal concerning the market management mechanisms, the thinking behind the document remains nevertheless genuinely new and bold in its targeting of direct payments and supporting the agri-environmental transition. The environment ministry’s contribution also illustrates in a detailed way certain aspects of the European Commission’s own policy thinking for the CAP after 2013.

MEEDDM (Ministère de l’Écologie, de l’Énergie, du Développement Durable et de la Mer) is the French environment ministry. It is responsible for the environment, sustainable development and the sea.

As part of the “Great national debate” on agriculture launched by Bruno Le Maire on 14 September, the findings of the five working groups set up by the Minister have been presented to the medias on 21 October. These summaries are intended to feed the farm modernization act which should be ready by the end of the year.

Of the thirty proposals, we note that nutrition is at the top of the basket. Minister proposes “to make food a genuine public policy [...] this means a commitment over several years for a diet that is healthy, secure and accessible to all French, which therefore includes a  social component and include the commitment for school canteens, even universities, to meet the nutritional rules.” [more]

Le point de vue de Nicolas-Jean Bréhon “Une PAC sans cap” publié dans le quotidien économique Les Echos, rappelle une série de constats que les ONG françaises du groupe PAC 2013 partagent assez largement sur le contenu de l’accord du bilan de santé conclu le 20 novembre.

Tout d’abord, le renforcement du développement rural dit le second pilier de la PAC, ne s’accomplira que par l’augmentation du transfert des aides directes du 1er pilier (modulation). A priori cela n’est pas une mauvaise chose en soi si cela permet un meilleur ciblage des aides vers l’agriculture durable. Mais à bien y regarder de près on constate que le diable se cache dans le détail.

Ainsi au titre des “nouveaux défis” relevant du développement rural, le secteur laitier serait doté de crédits supplémentaires issus de la modulation additionnelle pour accompagner la sortie des quotas laitiers d’ici 2015 : aides à la modernisation des exploitations laitières et aides à l’innovation. Quels modèles de productions sont ainsi sous-tendus par le 2nd pilier de la PAC ? Dans le cas du lait, le développement rural pourrait servir (entre autres) à soutenir la restructuration du secteur afin de renforcer la compétitivité des plus grands élevages, et ainsi compenser partiellement certains impacts négatifs dans les zones de faible densité laitière comme la montagne dus à l’abandon de la maîtrise de l’offre. Cet exemple illustre le caractère schizophrène de la PAC qui retire d’une main ce qu’elle donne de l’autre.

Deuxième constat, depuis 2003 la PAC tend à devenir une politique de soutien des revenus agricoles par les aides directes, au détriment d’une politique de stabilisation des prix par l’organisation des marchés. Il est vrai de dire que les agriculteurs se sentent humiliés parce qu’assistés de la sorte par la puissance publique, alors qu’ils demandent surtout d’intervenir sur les prix agricoles. Le soutien par le contribuable (impôts) se substitue au soutien par le consommateur (prix). Mais ce que Nicolas-Jean Bréhon ne dit pas, c’est que le monde agricole subit une double humililation avec la transparence des aides qui oblige les Etats à rendre public la liste des bénéficiaires des aides de la PAC, lesquelles sont inégalement distribuées comme chacun sait. La Commission Européenne mentionnait dans son étude d’impact du bilan de santé que la distribution des aides était tout sauf équitable quand 80% des aides vont à 20% des bénéficiaires, et quand près de la moitié des fermes Européennes reçoit des aides qui ne dépassent pas 500 €.

C’est dans ce contexte que la pression sur les aides risque de s’accentuer à l’approche de la révision budgétaire des politiques Européennes. D’un côté les Etats qui plaident pour une PAC “low cost” à l’instar du Royaume-Uni ou de la République Tchèque le font tout simplement parce qu’il ne possèdent aucune vision, aucun projet d’avenir pour l’agriculture et les zones rurales. L’agriculture ne fait pas partie de leurs priorités. En France, Michel Barnier a appelé à maintenir une PAC forte et ambitieuse après 2013 au nom du défi alimentaire mondial pour conserver le niveau d’aides que Bruxelles donne à nos agriculteurs. De fait, la France a esquivé la question du ciblage des aides sur la scène Européenne -alors que Michel Barnier avait relancé le débat en France-, ce qui a profité aux Pays-Bas et au Danemark qui ont pu confortablement étayer leur vision d’une PAC sans aides directes.

Certes le débat budgétaire sera difficile pour la PAC, surtout dans la période de crise que nous continuerons à traverser en 2009. Mais ça n’est pas par ce que ce sera difficile qu’il faut se faire à l’idée que la PAC sera abandonnée. Le statu quo étant de toute manière impossible, il est urgent de proposer une vision positive de l’agriculture après 2013. Sans doute y-aura-t-il moins d’argent pour la PAC si l’on se réfère à sa structure actuelle. Mais en qualifiant autrement ses domaines d’intervention et en ciblant mieux ses dépenses vers les domaines prioritaires, une nouvelle politique européenne de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du développement rural bénéficierait d’une justification et d’une légitimité renouvelées.

De toutes les manières, la politique agricole Européenne ne fera pas l’économie d’une refondation sur des principes écologiques qui garantissent la durabilité de la production agricole et de l’approvisionnement alimentaire. C’est en ces termes d’ailleurs qu’outre-Atlantique, Wes Jackson et Wendell Berry plaident dans le New-York Times pour une politique agricole de long terme, a 50-Year Farm Bill basé sur l’agronomie, les énergies renouvelables, et la conservation de sols afin de s’émanciper d’une insoutenable dépendance à l’égard des énergies non-renouvelables.