Commission sets new targets on land, pesticides and fertilisers to green the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)
According the joint strategies on biodiversity and sustainable food system, Member States will define how to achieve the targets in their national CAP Strategic Plans.
The sustainability agenda of the CAP turns national, as the European Commission delegates Member States to design, plan and implement actions on their own. The joint strategies on biodiversity and sustainable food system set the goals, while Member States decide how to achieve them. This means that the Common Agricultural Policy will be less common than it used to be. Every Member State will allocate different resources to different strategies in order to fulfil different priorities.
Member States will define the measures to achieve the targets for 2030, which are:
- The use of chemical pesticides is reduced by 50%;
- At least 10% of agricultural area is under high-diversity landscape features;
- At least 25% of agricultural land is under organic farming management;
- The losses of nutrients from fertilisers are reduced by 50%, resulting in the reduction of the use of fertilisers by at least 20%.
The legislative process is not completed, and other changes may follow. The regulation that revises the Common Agricultural Policy is not adopted yet and it is unlikely that a compromise will be reached before the end of the next year. Member States will nevertheless prepare their plans that the Commission will evaluate them before the revised regulation is adopted.
More measures are included in the text of the joint strategies.
The full texts can be downloaded from the European Commission website at this link (biodiversity) and this link (sustainable food system).