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EU: CAP Overview, Food Prices, “Agriturismo,” & Other Diverse Issues
CAP Overview
Jack Thurston, writing earlier this week at The CAP Health Check Blog, noted that, “The new issue of Food Ethics magazine is devoted to a discussion of CAP [The Common Agricultural Policy] reform and the 2008 CAP Health Check. Alongside articles by CAP Health Check blogger Wyn Grant and me, you’ll find some useful analysis by many of the movers and shakers in the CAP debate, both in Brussels, the UK and elsewhere. Read article-by-article here, or download the entire magazine as a handy PDF file: Food Ethics – CAP Reform issue. The Food Ethics Council is a UK-registered charity that challenges government, business and society to make wise choices that lead to better food and farming.”
Food Prices
European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Mariann Fischer Boel posted an update to her blog recently, where she noted that, “One of the hottest topics over the month of August was the rising price of food. The media in Germany went into overdrive over the soaring cost of milk, and the story rapidly spread further afield. There was similar concern about the effect of tight grain supplies on retail prices for bread and meat.
“I’ve obviously been watching the market situation very closely.”
Commissioner Fischer Boel added that, “While this has a lot to do with circumstances beyond our control, I think it’s fair to say that it also reflects very positively on the reform process we kicked off in 2003.
“In fact, it reminds me of the election slogan of a certain well-known US president: ‘It’s the economy, stupid!’
“Recent price developments are no more and no less than the market in action, which is precisely what we want from European agriculture in 2007. That was what the reforms were in large measure about – making farmers react to the market and making EU agriculture competitive.
“If further proof were needed about our enhanced competitiveness, we only have to note how export subsidies for all dairy products have been set at zero since June. Our farmers are able to compete in the global marketplace without export assistance from the EU! That is good news indeed.”
Later, Commissioner Fishcer Boel stated that, “As far as grain prices are concerned, I am keen to refute the idea that some people are putting about that it is largely the recent interest in biofuels that is driving up prices. This is not the case – they play a marginal role at most in the EU context. More significant by far have been low harvests in many regions of the world, bad weather in Europe and growing demand from east Asia. Here too, I have shown my willingness to act, by suggesting a cut in the set-aside rate for next year. And the entire principle of set-aside will also be high on the agenda of the Health Check.”
Italy- Agritourism
Reuters writer Svetlana Kovalyova reported earlier this week that, “Like many farmers, Martin Busin works from dawn till nightfall, but he still needs the help of his cafe-au-lait cow, Miss, to bring in tourists to keep afloat his smallholding in Italy’s mountainous Alto Adige region.
“With little farming land and over a million high-cost small farms, Italy started opening farms to tourists in the mid-1960s as a way to revive agriculture. It has been Europe’s leader in agritourism ever since.
“‘Our farm is too small to live off agriculture alone. We needed other activities to survive,’ said Busin, 44, who with his wife Waltraud, also 44, turned to ‘agriturismo’ some 20 years ago on their small farm in the hamlet of Trodena in the Dolomite mountains.”
The article went on to explain that, “Sector officials expect numbers to grow in the next few years on a wave of tourist demand and a move by the European Union to break the link between farm subsidies and production volumes and spend more on rural development.
“‘Potentially, I can see some 50,000 farms doing agritourism,’ said Giorgio Lo Surdo, director of Italy’s oldest sector body Agriturist (http://www.agriturist.it)
“The EC has set aside more than 77 billion euros for rural development projects in 2007-2013 aiming to boost agriculture’s competitiveness, environmental programs, diversification and quality of life through projects like agritourism.
“Over 8 billion euros are earmarked for Italy, where depopulation risks exist in some rural areas, especially in mountainous regions with poor infrastructure and where intensive farming is not possible.
“A typical Italian agriturismo offers accommodation and a restaurant where most of the food is home-made or at least produced locally. Visitors are often welcome to see how the food is made or even help out with some farm chores.”
In addition, the Reuters article noted that, “About three million tourists, a quarter of whom are foreigners, are expected to spend holidays on Italian farms this year, a 10 percent rise from 2006, among them families on a budget: staying in on a farm may cost a fraction of the cost of a hotel in the same village.”
Romania
Mark Mardell, in an item posted on Tuesday at the BBC Online, reported that, “In Transylvania in central Romania a cheerful woman with a pink headscarf stands outside her house behind a trestle table. On it she has old-fashioned scales, a couple of plastic baskets of pears and a small crate of apples.”
The item noted that, “But all over Romania it is obvious, wherever you go, that small-scale agriculture is the lifeblood of this country, whether for pocket money, home consumption or survival.”
Later, the BBC item stated that, “But Romania joined the European Union at the beginning of this year, and some question whether this way of life will survive.
“The EU reformed its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) a couple of years ago, so that it would no longer encourage over-production by big farms but instead make a key aim the ‘preservation of traditional rural landscapes, and bird and wildlife conservation’.
“But will this really work in Romania, where traditional agriculture will inevitably clash with some other EU values like ‘standards of farm hygiene and safety’? And will Romania joining the rest of the EU also mean the easy import of foreign standardised produce and modernisation of agricultural techniques?”
Later, at the conclusion of the article, the author noted that, “EU policy tends to tug in different directions, so one law designed to protect traditional environments may be undermined by another intended to help people stay in the countryside and still make a good living.
“But more important than the details of EU policy is the fact that joining the European Union gives access to new markets and gives those markets access to Romania.
It will almost certainly make Romania richer.
“Cheaper, mass-produced food will appear in the supermarkets and people will make their choice.
“One orchard owner who has recently sold some land and who has stopped breeding sheep and cows told me that people won’t buy her rough-pitted but tasty apples any longer.
“People have seen the deep red ones in the shop and like the look of them. There is no future for her in the land.”
Finland
Robert Anderson, writing on Tuesday at The Financial Times Online, reported that, “When Finland joined the European Union farmers still represented almost 7 per cent of those employed and they were deeply apprehensive about what accession would mean. Farming prices almost halved overnight once Finland joined the Common Agricultural Policy and many older farmers simply gave up.
“Farmers, once the staunchest opponents of the EU, are now more optimistic. ‘There was fear and anger at the beginning, especially over EU inspections, but, as soon as we got the hang of it, it was OK,’ says Kauko Matinyauri, a 55-year-old farmer from Tyrnävä, south of Oulu. ‘We haven’t lost our faith in farming.’
“That the worst fears were not realised reflects the heavy subsidies that Finland was allowed to give its farmers because of the country’s special geographical and climatic conditions. Subsidies totalled €1.9bn in 2006, around 60 of which came from the national budget, and these represent almost 45 per cent of the total return of the farming industry.
“However, Finland has to win EU approval for continued subsidies for the south of the country every four years, with the current term ending next January.”
The FT article added that, “Dairy production – historically the most important, especially in northern Finland – has suffered the steepest decline as small producers give up and sell their quotas. Cereal farming has also suffered, partly because the EU’s shift away from production subsidies towards direct support has encouraged barely profitable farmers to stop planting.
“‘Large-scale farmers do make money but on smaller farms one of the family has to work for someone else or the farm becomes a side business,’ says Mr Matinyauri, who farms 255 hectares, far above the Finnish average.
“There has been some shift towards more specialised crops as subsidies are decoupled from production and about 40 per cent of farmers now engage in side businesses such as machine contracting and wood and food processing.”
Water
An Associated Press article from last week reported that, “Europe’s citizens should expect water to become more scarce unless they stop wasting it, the European Union warned in a report released Friday.
“The study, done by the European Commission, said water use in the 27-nation bloc could be reduced by 40% if new technologies were introduced to improve efficiency.
“‘In a world plagued by increasing water scarcity and droughts we must urgently put an end to the tremendous waste of water across Europe,’ E.U. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said in a statement. ‘Water saving behaviors by European citizens and industry must be actively encouraged and promoted.’”
The AP article added that, “Southern E.U. members like Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal have already suffered from increasing droughts during summer months and are expected to face more in the years ahead, according to E.U. experts.”
Keith Good
