New CAP (2014 – 2020)

New CAP (2014 – 2020)

The New CAP will be based on Environmental Sustainability, Competitiveness, Efficiency: these are the new key words of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) that will regulate European agriculture from 2014 to 2020. If, as international observers note, the core will remain almost identical, the real novelty that has attracted the interest of operators is represented by the greening policy, a real plan for “greening” that will be compulsory in order to receive funding. In particular two terms are introduced: Greening and Capping.
• Greening: the greening system of the CAP establishes that 70% of direct payments are allocated to supporting income, while the payment of the remaining 30% is subordinate to respecting three “green” norms. Firstly, diversification: farmers will have to cultivate at least 3 crops on the farm; none of these may extend to more than 70% of the usable arable soil and no less than 5%. The Maintenance of permanent pasture must also be guaranteed and, in addition, at least 7% of the surface of the farm must be allocated to maintaining biodiversity and the fertility of the ground (hedges, wooded areas, trees, etc.). To sum up: for respecting some agricultural practices that are advantageous to the climate and the environment, besides the basic payment, each farm will receive a payment per hectare. For this payment, which will not be subject to reductions, member states will have to reserve 30% of their EU contributions. The three measures established for being able to receive this payment are:
– maintaining permanent pasture;
– the diversification of the crops: a farmer has to cultivate at least three crops on the arable land, none of which can occupy more than 70% of the surface, while the third must occupy at least 5% of the arable area);
– the maintenance of an area of ecological interest equal to at least 7% of the agricultural lands (excluding permanent meadows): This regards the edge of fields, hedges, trees, fallow fields, typical elements of the landscape, biotopes, buffer zones and areas set aside for planting forests.
The greening measures will not be applied to biological products and small farms.
• Capping: this consists in setting the highest amount of direct payments that a farm can receive at 300.000 Euros and reducing by 20% payments that at present are between 150 and 200 thousand Euros, 40% those between 200 and 250 thousand and 70% those between 250 and 300 thousand Euros. In addition, a minimum threshold has been established below which the expenses for the request for payments would be higher than the payment received and below which, therefore, there will not be the possibility to receive aid. It consists of 1 hectare or 100 Euros, but it can be modified according to the business structure of every Member State: for Italy 400 Euros or 0.5 hectare has been proposed.
With regard to Rural Development: there will no longer exist axes and measures, but it will be based on partnership contracts between Member States and the EU, aimed at reaching specific objectives regarding competitiveness, innovation, efficiency, reduction of environmental impact and the impact on the climate, as well as risk management of the agricultural holding. The rates of co-funding are almost unchanged, as are the terms of distribution of the resources that will be increased thanks to the reduction of payments caused by capping.
Once again this is nothing more than a predictable failure that behind technicalities (also seductive ones like the increase in biodiversity, the diversification of crops produced by the farms, etc.) establishes the EU as a Financial State that dominates real Rural Policy and triggers new and more dangerous processes leading to the deterioration of agriculture and of the rurality of the territory.
Once again the use of finance dominates and distorts a sector that by now is on the verge of collapse; once again we have the Europe of rules without planning, without safeguarding the real free market. Once again we have a Europe subjugated by the logic of financial interventions which act as medicine for a sick person who does not want money but assistance, a growth of knowledge, the guarantee that his livelihood and his production will be safeguarded.
There is no trace of the recovery of the knowledge of tradition, of the millennia-old experience of agriculture, of traditional production, of local production; etc… Biodiversity is presented as the driving force but there is no territorial project. There is no trace of the Kyoto protocol, of safeguards against emissions for the long-term future of agricultural products. There is no trace of a social project, as if Rural Politics is based on production and not on men and on social structures. There is no trace of the problem of the disappearance of small rural towns and villages that “held” the territory together. Explain all this to the roughly 6,000 (six thousand) Italian municipalities that, linked to rurality, are sadly and depressingly disappearing, provoking poverty, instability and a sea of mud that will wash over us in the coming years.
There is a lot of talk about biological agriculture while forgetting to pay attention to research on real biological pest control, which is the only way to avoid an imminent environmental disaster (an exponential reduction in pollinators, salinisation – and destruction – of soil, healthcare spending for the ill which has become immense and is no longer sustainable,….).
Apart from financial measures, there is no trace of solutions for issues that Finance can not solve but only make worse. The Rural World was formed over thousands of years through sacrifice and experience, paths that the CAP now has made dangerously unstable, given that the CAP itself is a cause of this instability.
Support for income from productions is discussed and applied, forgetting to find a remedy for the true problem regarding income from productions, which is that of a market that is anything but free, managed instead by Multinationals and “Cartels”. The Market is a real worry for the EU, without understanding that Man has to be the main preoccupation.
There is a lot of talk about competitiveness, innovation and efficiency, forgetting that agriculture (and natural systems in general) is based on different functional models (gradual, progressive, adaptive, etc.) that are totally alien to the CAP.
It is as if we wanted to perform a surgical operation on a patient using a mechanic’s tools, or writing a poem using numbers instead of letters.
It is evident that the World is at a watershed, divided between those who would like to govern through Finance and those who would like to help it Grow through Awareness.
Believe me, they are two different languages: the first (Finance) wants only to govern processes for its own ends, the second (Awareness) would like individuals to grow in dignity, just as the laws of Nature, which we have greatly manipulated, help us to learn.
In this CAP there is no trace of Wisdom, Knowledge, Awareness: there is no trace of man’s centrality – only and simply of the Market and Finance and of an Environment without man.
There is not trace of that evolution of Humanistic Thought which is emerging from under the cultural degradation of this epoch.
This new CAP has already died before being born.
It is the most sordid CAP ever produced.
After all, it has been delivered by the same mother who gave us the SPREAD.

Guido Bissanti

Bibliography

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