OECD review of EU farming reform remains blind to key sustainability challenges

07/10/2011

One week before the official publication of the European Commission’s legislative proposals to overhaul the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), the OECD has published an evaluation report of the Union’s past and present farming policy reforms.

The report highlights the fact that high food prices have made European farmers much less dependent on governmental income support and endorses most of the Commission’s new reform ideas. That said, the OECD report has little to offer in terms of policies to make Europe’s agriculture resilient to future resource and energy shocks.

As is to be expected from the OECD, the report frames its evaluation within the neoliberal free-market narrative of future farming. It recommends further market access, innovation, risk management and improved “environmental performance”, but gives little or no attention to the big energy and sustainability challenges facing the future of food and farming, not just in Europe, but the world as a whole.

On 12 October, Commissioner Ciolos will be presenting the Commission’s new proposals to reform the CAP. Most of the reforms will focus on direct payments, capping them to a maximum amount and “greening” this financial support. Portuguese Member of the European Parliament Luis Capoulas Santos, a former minister for agriculture, has been appointed European rapporteur for the Commission’s post-2013 CAP reform proposals.

OECD review of EU farming reform remains blind to key sustainability challenges

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