Transitioning towards agroecology. Using th CAP to build new Food systems

Summary

In Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the key legislative framework influencing the production, sale and processing of agricultural products. The CAP has driven major decisions on the direction of agriculture in Europe and the spending of considerable amounts of EU public funds – today it takes up around 40% of the total EU budget. Responsible for our food, our rural communities, our countryside, our health, our environment and our farmers, the CAP affects everyone.
It is widely acknowledged that the CAP has encouraged a model of agriculture that damages the environment – contributing to climate change, biodiversity loss, soil erosion and water pollution – and has promoted factory-style farming at the expense of viable incomes for farmers and jobs in rural areas. A strong commodity-orientated production has increased imports of cheap rawmaterials produced in socially and environmentally damagingways, and cheap exports to the global south which means that the CAP's impact is felt much further afield than in the EU alone. Yet, despite reforms over past decades, so far the CAP has not gone far enough to support or stimulate food sovereignty and agroecological approaches.
This needs to change urgently and it requires better CAP implementation across the European Union.