What will the EU Green Deal mean for Irish farmers?
Director,
Cúl Dara Consultancy
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Last week, EU Agricultural Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski advised the European Parliament Agriculture Committee that he would send every Member State a set of customised recommendations to inform the design of each country’s CAP Strategic Plan over the coming days. He made it clear that this was about raising the climate, environment and sustainability ambition of those plans — or put differently, to press member states to set out quantified targets to increase the asks on farmers.
What is the Green Deal?
When announcing its vision for its 5-year term, the then newly nominated EU Commission, headed by Ursula von der Leyen, stated in December 2019 that “Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe and the world”. Taking a clear global leadership position in that space, she announced a new green economic growth strategy which aims to reduce and mitigate green house gas emissions while providing for “just transition” for workers involved in the climate damaging industries the Green Deal aims to phase out.
The Green Deal targets all sectors of the EU economy, and its Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies are specific to agriculture. While they do not have the status of legislation, Ursula von der Leyen has made it very clear that the EU Commission would expect those strategies to be strongly reflected in CAP measures to be delivered by farmers.
The Farm to Fork strategy
As the name indicates, this strategy concerns the whole food chain.
At the production end, it aims for a number of apparently specific and certainly ambitious targets to be achieved in the next decade: reduce pesticide use by 50%, reduce soil nutrient losses by 50% without decrease in soil fertility and fertiliser use by at least 20%. Reduce antimicrobial use by 50%; and increase the agricultural area under organic farming to 25% (the EU average is 7.5%, Ireland’s only around 2.5%). It also plans to include targets for animal welfare improvements.
The strategy also proposes that carbon sequestration and removal on farms would be recognised and certified, promotes a circular bio-based economy and encourages investment in renewable energy.
At the food end, it aims to tackle the sustainability of the entire food chain, as well as healthy eating, obesity and food waste.
The Biodiversity strategy
Here, the EU Commission plans to extend legally binding environmental protection for at least 30% of land and sea in Europe. It also plans for the planting of 3bn trees, the restoration of over 25,000 km of rivers to free-flowing, and reversing pollinator loss.
A fund of €20bn per annum specifically aimed at funding biodiversity measures is to be “unlocked”.
What does that all mean for CAP?
The EU Commission has set out how it “will work with the member states and stakeholders to ensure that the national strategic plans fully reflect the ambition of the Green Deal, the Farm to Fork Strategy and the Biodiversity Strategy” to ensure that CAP can respond to “societal demands on food and health including safe, nutritious and sustainable food, food waste, as well as animal welfare”.
This means the EU Commission will expect the inclusion of Green Deal measures as part of CAP conditionality, interventions, indicators, objectives and results as well as for monitoring and assessing the National Strategic Plans member states have been asked to produce. It will expect member states to include specific measures in eco-schemes, provide targeted supports for rural development, organic farming, integrated pest management, reduced use of nutrients and anti-microbials, and strong promotion of forestry.
Perhaps more palatable from a farmer’s perspective, it also involves a focus on quality broadband, and the remuneration of carbon sequestration.
What impact from the Green Deal?
Many of the targets of the Green Deal agricultural ambitions appear arbitrary and unrealistic. Reducing pesticide and antibiotics use depends at least in part on the availability of alternatives. Moving from an EU average of 7.5% organically farmed land to 25% over a decade, and ensuring that the market for organic foods continues to remunerate the higher costs involved when it becomes more mainstream, is also challenging.
However, the EU has yet to produce an impact assessment on production volumes and economics of its Green Deal.
In early November, the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Services did just that. And their assessment is damning – for European food producers and consumers alike.
They predict that, should the EU Green Deal policies be adopted globally, they would reduce EU food production by 7%, and by 12% if they were adopted in the EU only. With EU only adoption, EU farmers’ gross farm income would fall 16%. EU exports would fall 20%.
Tighter food availability would increase food prices and reduce EU consumers’ purchasing power – the study predicts EU prices could increase by between 17% (EU only adoption) and 53% (global adoption). That is an extra US$153 to US$651 per year, per consumer.
Perhaps worst of all, in light of the stated ambitions of the EU Green Deal, its global adoption would increase the food insecurity of up to 185 million people.
High time the EU Commission did its own impact assessment: the least farmers and consumers deserve is a rigorous cost/benefit analysis.
CAP trilogues
The Green Deal ambitions will play a strong part in the ongoing tripartite negotiations on CAP between the EU Commission, the European Parliament and the EU Agriculture Council.
The EU Commission has stated that they would not play their usual role of honest broker, but would put pressure on the other two institutions and on Member States to deliver on their Green Deal ambitions through the CAP legal text and the National Strategic Plans.
It will be crucial that the practicality and cost of the various measures be duly weighed up against the benefits, and that farmers be supported in delivering the desirable climate, environment and other valuable sustainability public goods while sustaining their ability to produce quality food profitably.
Farm negotiators have their work cut out!
PS – No deal Brexit inevitable?
As we write, EU and UK Brexit negotiators Michel Barnier and David Frost have issued a joint statement of their view that there is no basis for a deal. The stumbling blocks? The same three as for the last six months: fishing rights, fair competition and dispute resolution.
The future of any deal now hangs on an “emergency call” between EU President Ursula von der Leyen and UK PM Boris Johnson – not a good place to be when so little progress appears to have been made!
Last month, we outlined the inevitable logistical chaos that any outcome short of the UK remaining in the EU’s single market and customs union would cause. However, a no-deal outcome would compound this with costly and damaging import tariffs.
Here is hoping that a deal can be salvaged at the 11th hour!
© Catherine Lascurettes, Cúl Dara Consultancy
