Brussels, 10 April 2018 – Today, IFOAM EU and FiBL released a new report ‘Towards a new public goods payment model for remunerating farmers under the CAP Post-2020’. The publication calls for the creation of an ambitious Eco Scheme under Pillar I that remunerates farmers for delivering public goods and for linking clear CAP objectives with performance indicators.
Eduardo Cuoco, IFOAM EU Director, referred to the report as follows: “We need to modernise the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) to move away from compensating farmers to rewarding farmers for the public goods that they deliver to society. This report shows that a new CAP payment model is possible. For this reform to be effective, the whole CAP structure should have a strong focus on sustainability.”
Jan Plagge, IFOAM EU Board Member, said: “The new CAP needs to enable all farmers, conventional or organic, to transition to more sustainable farming systems. This report shows that indicator-based sustainability assessment tools can be used within the CAP to reward farmers who take initiatives to make their farms more sustainable and to take better care of natural resources”.
Thomas Fertl, IFOAM EU Board Member, added that: “The post-2020 CAP should be results-oriented and based on clear sustainability objectives for the economic, social and environmental dimensions that are linked to reliable indicators. By rewarding farmers according to objectives that they deliver upon, the new CAP can unlock their potential as ‘sustainable entrepreneurs’. With the right CAP model in place and sufficient funding, by 2030 the organic farming sector could constitute at least one quarter of the EU’s farmland area”.
The report was written by FiBL and commissioned by IFOAM EU. It makes ambitious recommendations on the overall structure and delivery model of the policy. Moreover, the report draws attention to sustainability assessment tools that are already in use in certain countries and which should be considered for the post-2020 CAP.
Bio Eco Actual, International Organic Newspaper
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