Source: European Parliament
The Commission is convinced that agricultural production and nature preservation must go hand in hand to face climate change by improving water resilience and give young farmers a farming future. Balance between agriculture and nature has both an EU and a national dimension.
The present Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)[1] and existing environmental and climate acquis, provide a solid legal framework for Member States to identify fit for purpose targets, based on National Strategic Plans, offering them more margin for manoeuvre than before.
Member States have designed tailor-made interventions in their CAP Strategic Plans (CSPs) which also target livestock-related pollution. Eco-Schemes and Agri-Environmental and Climate Commitments support interventions to improve water quality and nutrient management, addressing manure surplus, on 21% and 15.5% of EU farmland[2] respectively.
Other interventions include livestock density adjustments, aiming at reducing Greenhouse Gases, water and air (ammonia) emissions (for example, the Luxembourgish CSP[3] offers financial aid to less intensive animal husbandry systems).
In his speech during the Grüne Woche[4] (Green Week), the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food reflected on targeted territorial solutions for balancing the livestock sector’s competitiveness with environmental sustainability, as published later in the Commission’s Vision for Agriculture and Food[5].
This approach includes maintaining grasslands, valorising the link with carbon sinks and improved water resilience, as well as more extensive systems beneficial in preserving biodiversity while reducing negative externalities.
- [1] https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/cap-overview/cap-glance_en
- [2] https://agridata.ec.europa.eu/extensions/DashboardCapPlan/result_indicators.html
- [3] https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/document/download/a534870e-10e8-4178-bbdb-efc16b0485d0_en?filename=csp-at-a-glance-luxembourg-en.pdf
- [4] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_25_460
- [5] https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/overview-vision-agriculture-food_en