PAN Europe has published today its position paper[1] proposing how the European Commission’s legislative proposals on the New Delivery Model of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should be changed to deliver on reducing EU’s dependency on pesticides.
EU Agriculture Ministers are meeting today to discuss Commission’s proposal[2] on the CAP strategic plans, one of the three legislative proposals[3] belonging to the post 2020 CAP reform package. PAN Europe calls for fundamental improvements in the CAP to deliver a serious reduction in EU’s pesticide dependency while encouraging the much-needed agroecological transition.
“In the EU, we pay around 60 billion euro each year to support our farmers. The majority of these payments are made to the same farmers who buy around 400,000 tons of active substances each year which are applied to the fields, adversely affecting public health, environment and biodiversity, and coming with a huge economic cost for society at large. It is fundamental that this 60 billion euro of public support in the CAP, especially now it is being promoted as a result-based policy, supports farmers in their transition to low impact farming systems. The subsidies should fund the uptake of serious Integrated pest management as actually explained in the EU’s directive on sustainable use of pesticides, including targeting also agroecological and organic production techniques, assist to reduce farmers’ dependency on pesticides, and encourage them to work with nature not against it.” said Henriette Christensen, Senior Policy Advisor at PAN Europe.
Contact: PAN Europe, Henriette Christensen, +32 473 37 56 71, henriette [at] pan-europe.info
(1)PAN Europe's position on the proposal for a New Delivery Model for the CAP after 2020 www.pan-europe.info/sites/pan-europe.info/files/PositionPaper_CAP_post20...
(2)CAP strategic plans – Proposal for a regulation COM(2018) 392 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM%3A2018%3A392%3AFIN
(3)Legislative Proposals https://ec.europa.eu/info/food-farming-fisheries/key-policies/common-agr...
