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In the E.U., farm support mostly includes direct subsidies for farmers’ living standards (64 percent of SGPA in 2010), especially incorporating the Single Payment Schemes (SPSs), which account for 47 percent of all farm support paid in 2010. The support rationale is geared to farmers, but is decoupled from production and market prices. The European policy thus does not have the tools to react efficiently to price instability. And the post-2013 CAP reform proposed by the European Commission makes matters worse, without meeting the challenges of European farmers.

In the light of this study, momagri calls on European leaders to incorporate in the future CAP genuine regulatory mechanisms that stabilize prices and agricultural incomes, while introducing more efficiency in E.U. spending.

Otherwise? The E.U. must take on increased food dependence and all its consequences in social, financial and political terms. The process has already begun, since the European Union has by now doubled imports during the past decade, and seems to import the equivalent of the production of 87 million acres of farmland, i.e. the size of Germany.

Note

Momagri, movement for a world agricultural organization, is a think tank chaired by Pierre Pagesse, President
of Limagrain. It brings together, managers from the agricultural world and important people from external
perspectives, such as health, development, strategy and defense. Its objective is to promote regulation
of agricultural markets by creating new evaluation tools, such as economic models and indicators,
and by drawing up proposals for an agricultural and international food policy.

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