The current reform proposals of the EU Commission on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are unlikely to improve environmental protection, say researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Göttingen in the journal Science. While the EU has committed to greater sustainability, this is not reflected in the CAP reform proposal. The authors show how the ongoing reform process could still accommodate conclusive scientific findings and public demand to address environmental challenges including climate change.
The current reform proposals of the EU Commission on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are unlikely to improve environmental protection, say researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Göttingen in the journal Science. While the EU has committed to greater sustainability, this is not reflected in the CAP reform proposal. The authors show how the ongoing reform process could still accommodate conclusive scientific findings and public demand to address environmental challenges including climate change.
Agricultural areas cover 174 million hectares, or 40 percent of the EU area (over 50 percent in Germany). Land use intensification, primarily by agriculture, is identified by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as the number one cause of biodiversity loss, with risk to human wellbeing resulting from losses of biodiversity and ecosystem services. The European Union, and thus also Germany, has committed in various international agreements to shift toward sustainable agriculture, the protection of biodiversity, and combatting climate change. With approx. 40 percent of the total budget, the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the most important policy areas for implementing these international commitments. “The proposal made by the European Commission for the CAP post-2020, published in June 2018, demonstrates very little of this intention,” says a research team led by Dr Guy Pe'er (iDiv, UFZ) and Dr Sebastian Lakner (University of Göttingen).
The researchers analysed the proposal for the CAP post-2020 with a focus on three questions: Is the reform proposal compatible with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), does it reflect public debate on agriculture, and, does it offer a clear improvement compared to the current CAP? The analysis was based on a comprehensive review of the literature with about 450 publications, addressing issues such as effectiveness, efficiency and relevance of the CAP. The scientists’ conclusion: The proposed CAP represents a clear step backwards compared with the current one. “Taking sustainability and the SDGs seriously requires a deep reflection on agricultural policy, its budgets and instruments, and developing good indicators for measuring success,” says ecologist Guy Pe'er. “Beyond words, we found little of that.” According to the researchers, the CAP has the potential to support at least nine of the seventeen SDGs, but currently it only contributes to achieving two of them.
Read more at German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig
Image: Monotonous landscapes created by agricultural intensification. The CAP reform proposed by the EU risks the expansion of such landscapes, according to the scientists. (Credit: Sebastian Lakner)
