L'Europa può rendere competitiva l'agricoltura biologica?
L'anno scorso gli agricoltori hanno protestato contro la burocrazia legata ai finanziamenti dell'UE e le loro manifestazioni hanno dato i loro frutti.
ALTRE INFORMAZIONI : http://it.euronews.com/2025/06/03/leuropa-puo-rendere-competitiva-lagricoltura-biologica
Abbonati, euronews è disponibile in 12 lingue.
L'anno scorso gli agricoltori hanno protestato contro la burocrazia legata ai finanziamenti dell'UE e le loro manifestazioni hanno dato i loro frutti.
ALTRE INFORMAZIONI : http://it.euronews.com/2025/06/03/leuropa-puo-rendere-competitiva-lagricoltura-biologica
Abbonati, euronews è disponibile in 12 lingue.
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00:00Musica
00:00Farmer's protests a year ago against bureaucracy attached to EU funding have yielded results.
00:20The European Commission has been simplifying farmer's environmental obligations,
00:25which in turn led to criticism by supporters of the European Green Deal.
00:30Meanwhile, farmers are preparing a new battlefront to avoid cuts in the Common Agricultural Policy
00:36in the next EU budget.
00:38The reform of European agriculture is at the heart of this EU decoded.
00:43The legislative simplification aims to save farmers 1.58 billion euros and member states
00:50210 million euros per year.
00:52To achieve that, the European Commission proposes easier payments for small farmers, including
00:57a raise of the annual lump sum to 2.500 euros, more flexible environmental controls, including
01:04for conservation of peatlands, wetlands and watercourses, easier mechanism to be reimbursed
01:10in case of natural disaster or animal disease, a single digital system to reduce paperwork.
01:16Farmers are pleased, but environmentalists say that measures will backfire.
01:22The latter argue that less environmental protection could lead to more climate change that could
01:27harm agriculture.
01:29Here's what some Europeans think about this challenge.
01:31I think the normative, if it's the question, has to be much more strict, and to encourage
01:38them, but on the other hand, to control the way they have to act and legal.
01:44But they have to have certain norms that allow the environment and the health of everyone.
01:51I think there's a lot of bureaucracy in Europe, so that's why the farmers have so many
01:59norms.
02:00If the farmers lose their ability to have income, they're going to stop producing, and then
02:05what's going to happen to us, the consumers?
02:07I think there's a lot of possibilities being put on them, rather than the actual culprits,
02:11which are massive corporations.
02:12On peut pas renoncer à l'agriculture en Europe.
02:15Il faut pas être dépendant des importations.
02:20With me is Gerardo Fortuna, one of Euronews' agriculture policy experts.
02:25What is the expected outcome of simplifying EU agriculture rulebook?
02:31The goal is to make farmers' life easier, basically.
02:35insist on their livelihoods and their well-being.
02:38And it's, of course, clearly in response to the major farmers' protests that we've
02:43seen last year in Brussels and across the rest of EU countries.
02:47So how does agriculture have to evolve in the European Union in order to meet its goals
02:53for climate and environmental protection within the Green Deal?
02:57I'm a bit pessimistic about it, because the agriculture and food part of the Green Deal,
03:03and the farm-to-fork strategy, has been put aside in this mandate.
03:07It's been replaced by this EU agriculture and food vision that is not meeting the same environmental concerns, let's say.
03:16There will be an attempt from EU lawmakers to try to meet the environmental targets
03:21through innovation and technology rather than just stricter regulation.
03:27The next battle for farmers will be the common agriculture policy revision within the new EU budget for 2028-2034.
03:37What are the farmers' demands regarding this fund?
03:40This time is a bit different, because they might lose the rural development.
03:44So it's the second pillar of the commercial policy, which includes environmental investments, but also support rural communities.
03:53And at the same time, they want these payments to be indexed to inflation, and they also want a stronger protection when it comes to trade deals.
04:03Thank you, Gerardo. Let's see now some more data on this agriculture reform.
04:08In the EU budget for 2021-2027, the cap received 386.6 billion euros, about one-third of the total budget.
04:18For the 2028-2034 budget, the Commission advocates merging the cap with the cohesion fund,
04:25the latter used for regional development.
04:28The new financial instrument, called National and Regional Investment Partnerships, may be presented in July.
04:34The EU Parliament opposes this idea and, in a recent resolution, demanded that the fund remain autonomous
04:42and receive even more funds in the next budget.
04:45Let's hear the positions of two entities with opposing views on this subject,
04:50the Environmental Organization Client Earth, and the Farmers' Association Copacorceca.
04:59So in these proposals, clearly the environmental objectives are there.
05:05The Commission intervenes on some elements in which the first two years of implementation of the CAP,
05:11which proved to be unworkable for our farmers.
05:15What we absolutely need to understand is that farming relies on nature.
05:21So when the EU, since actually several years, is postponing or stripping off environmental rules,
05:32it also jeopardizes the future of farming, of farmers' jobs, of farmers' health,
05:40because they are impacted by some practices as well.
05:47If you think that the average farm size is 17 hectares,
05:53so you have the small, the medium, the bigger.
05:56But the key element is the diversity.
05:58So we are able to maintain this diversity, which allows to contribute to food security in Europe,
06:05but also reduce food insecurity outside Europe.
06:10From my point of view, the competitivity of the EU or its food sovereignty is not guaranteed in the long term,
06:17because we do not have a resilience in front of natural harm that is being caused,
06:24notably by farming practices, intensive practices, but that farmers are also victims of.
06:31It is not addressing the causes that put farmers in these situations,
06:36which is climate change and the degradation of the environment,
06:41the loss of pollinators, and so on and so forth.
06:44Europe needs to invest in agriculture, and with a strong budget increase to inflation.
06:54We call to maintain a common policy, able to ensure single market,
07:00invest to do the transition that society wants, and actually support a strategic sector as agriculture.
07:09I think that we need to invest in agriculture, so we need money for the agriculture sector,
07:17but we need this money to not constitute harmful subsidies.
07:21Currently, only 20% of the beneficiaries of the cap receive 80% of the subsidies.
07:29This is enormous.
07:31The long and sometimes violent wave of protests by farmers ahead of the 2024 European elections
07:37has changed the discourse on the Green Deal.
07:40The majority in the European Parliament is now calling for more support for agriculture
07:45and less ambitions for the ecological transition.
07:48The negotiations on the next EU budget will test how deep the bloc's agricultural reform will be.
07:54More the comeback of the Chinese refugee reform will be.