Five MEPs from the Socialists and Democrats group in the EU Parliament have called for a complete rethink of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in centrist Belgian newspaper La Libre.

In an editorial signed by MEPs from France, Hungary, Italy and Belgium the parliamentarians said successive reforms since 1992 have led to a CAP which has failed to guarantee sustainable incomes for farmers, maintain employment in farming tackle price volatility. They said, “This raises questions about the type of agricultural development the EU wants for today and tomorrow… When a policy has not achieved its objectives, it must change.”

The MEPs said there is growing disparity between the agricultural policies in place in different member states, which is leading to distortions of competition between different EU states - a criticism often levelled at compromise measures reached on issues such as GM crops and often heard during the last CAP reform process, particularly in relation to the policy of ‘modulation’ which allowed governments to shift a portion of funds between the direct payments and rural development pillars. The five said the current price crisis affecting several sectors shows that the CAP is not meeting farmers needs, and that food producers require a stable income, rather than aid.

They added that the 2014 reforms are already outdated and urged for new reforms to focus on the challenges of the 21st Century, calling the Russian embargo and slowing of import demand from China “the matches that lit the CAP’s already-primed fuse.”

The five legislators said the most egregious errors of the CAP are a “blind belief” in the virtues of agricultural markets and a denial of their instability. They said current policy decisions, such as decoupling direct payments from agricultural production, have highlighted these errors, adding “When prices are high, these direct payments are difficult to justify, then they are low payments are inadequate to help farmers.”

Elsewhere in the world, payments are linked to farm-gate prices, production, or input costs and are sometimes only brought to bear when prices dip, to shield farmers from the wildest swings of volatility.

The five have created a think tank, called "a new strategic direction for the CAP”, arguing that the market cannot be relied on to solve the crisis, and that more regulation is needed to rein in the lurch between boom and bust. They also acknowledged that EU citizens’ priorities have changed since the CAP was first introduced, and that environmental restoration, greening food production and producing health benefits are the key desires of most European consumers.

The MEPs’ arguments focus on the costs to farmers of the current CAP. They were published last week, days before the UK House of Lords’ EU Committee released its report on Europe’s agricultural policy, which also called for a rethink of the CAP - the EU’s biggest single spend - to provide public goods, such as meaningful food security, better animal welfare and better stewardship of the land, 75% of which is under the control of farmers in Britain. The Lords said CAP funds undoubtedly represent a lifeline for farmers, but can conversely contribute to shutting out new entrants into farming.

Contrary to the S&D MEPs, the Lords’ report concluded that adverse effects at farm level are caused more by unanticipated periods of sustained low prices than by an increase in levels of price volatility. The Committee argued that price volatility is a normal market risk to be managed by farmers, and that it is no greater now than in the past. The Lords recommended that occasional public support is needed to protect farmers from “unpredictable market disruption”, like the Russian trade embargo and extreme weather events. However, they said policy should focus on building farmers’ resilience and capacity to manage risks.

Baroness Scott, chair of the Lords Committee, said, ”Direct Payments still have a role to play and we do not propose a move to a US style insurance based approach. However, there is a real risk with the pronounced focus on blanket income support, as opposed to more targeted subsidies, that innovation is stifled and new farmers are discouraged from entering the industry."

Last month, over 100 anti-poverty, sustainable farming and conservation charities put pressure on the Commission to commit to a ‘health check’ of the CAP, which numerous reviews have found represents poor value for society and nature, and recommended fundamental changes, since the latest reforms began to take shape. Discussing a report which he led on the impacts of the “perverse” subsidy regime in September last year, Cambridge University’s Dr Andrew Tanentzap said, “If we are paying people to be farmers, part of that payment - indeed, part of the job of a farmer - needs to be protecting the countryside as well as farming it. We need a shift in what it means to be a farmer."