EU Overhaul of Farming Strategy Ignores Vital Green Proposals, Campaigners Warn
European farmers will face fewer rules and less foreign competition, a new vision for agriculture promises, as environmental campaigners warn that key green proposals have been ignored.
The EU’s new farming strategy will overhaul the sector with targeted financial support, stricter import standards and a shift from “conditions to incentives” in the green strings attached to its vast subsidy scheme, according to the report published on Wednesday.
The strategy promises better pay and conditions, and proposes targeting support to help young farmers. It also calls for tighter rules on unfair trading practices, declaring that “practices where farmers are systematically forced to sell below costs will not be tolerated”.
But the document stops short of proposing an end to payments based on farm size and makes no mention of a “just transition fund” to help farmers clean up their pollution. The proposals were among key recommendations in a report hammered out by a broad group of food-chain stakeholders at the request of the commission last year.