Revised Agricultural Policy Aimed at Helping Small European Farmers

Summary

The European Commission has pro­posed changes to the Common Agricultural Policy, includ­ing higher pay­ments for small farm­ers and increased dis­as­ter relief fund­ing, in response to protests by farm­ers across Europe. The pro­posal, which aims to address the finan­cial chal­lenges faced by small farms, will be sub­mit­ted for approval to the European Parliament and European Council for imple­men­ta­tion by 2027.

The European Commission has pro­posed changes to the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy, includ­ing higher pay­ments for small farm­ers, increased dis­as­ter relief fund­ing, and stream­lin­ing reg­u­la­tions.

The cor­rec­tive pack­age on the CAP comes after wide­spread demon­stra­tions by farm­ers across Europe last year. They protested high pro­duc­tion costs, reduced sub­si­dies and the E.U.’s free-trade agree­ment with Mercosur. 

The pro­posed changes will be sub­mit­ted for approval to the European Parliament and European Council, where they are expected to pass in time for the new Common Agricultural Policy, which will come into force in 2027.

Many of the changes are geared at improv­ing the finan­cial state of Europe’s small farms, such as dou­bling the annual lump-sum pay­ment to €2,500, adding a one-time lump sum pay­ment of €50,000 to improve com­pet­i­tive­ness and new cri­sis pay­ments for extreme weather events and dis­eases.

Katia Merten-Letz, a part­ner at Food Law Science and Partners, told Food Navigator that the mea­sures are nec­es­sary to address the grow­ing gap between small farm­ers and large agribusi­nesses, but will not ​“change the farm­ers’ world.”

The pro­posal also gives mem­ber states greater flex­i­bil­ity to adapt how they imple­ment the CAP in their national strate­gic plans, exempts small farm­ers from some envi­ron­men­tal rules and allows cer­ti­fied organic farms to auto­mat­i­cally meet envi­ron­men­tal require­ments.

The European Commission fur­ther encour­aged national gov­ern­ments to develop inter­op­er­a­ble dig­i­tal sys­tems so farm­ers only need to sub­mit data once. 

“We are bring­ing back prag­ma­tism in the Common Agricultural Policy,” said Christophe Hansen, com­mis­sioner for agri­cul­ture and food. ​“Our pro­pos­als today strike a bal­ance between the need to have a pol­icy fit for the real­i­ties on the ground while safe­guard­ing a cer­tain sta­bil­ity for all agri­cul­tural stake­hold­ers.

“The Commission is on farm­ers’ side, and we are doing our best to cut the bureau­cracy so they can focus on what they do best; pro­duc­ing food for all of us while pro­tect­ing our nat­ural resources,” he added. ​“I am con­fi­dent that these mea­sures will deliver con­crete results on the ground. I call on co-leg­is­la­tors to adopt this pro­posal by the end of the year so changes can already reach farm­ers in 2026.”

Reaction to the announce­ment has been mixed. Copa and Coegca, the influ­en­tial unions of European farm­ers and agri-coop­er­a­tives, wel­comed the pro­posal as a com­mon-sense sim­pli­fi­ca­tion mea­sure and way to enhance European com­pet­i­tive­ness.

However, the European Environmental Bureau warned that some of the commission’s pro­posed mea­sures may unnec­es­sar­ily remove envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions.

“Without suf­fi­cient impact assess­ment or real pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, the European Commission has yet again casu­ally done away with nature and cli­mate pro­tec­tions in Europe’s largest bud­get, the Common Agricultural Policy,” said Théo Paquet, the bureau’s senior pol­icy offi­cer.

“Such short – sighted deci­sions will not only hin­der farm resilience due to the many ben­e­fits pro­vided by healthy ecosys­tems, but also bring the legit­i­macy of the CAP into ques­tion as it strays fur­ther from its envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate objec­tives,” he con­cluded.

• Food Navigator
• Coop News