New report by the Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation explores the concept of European Added Value in relation to the Common Agricultural Policy in one of three case studies

Commissioned by the RSPB, new IEEP report highlights potential opportunities for Member States to deliver more for the environment according to the proposed changes to rural development regulation. The report sets out a series of principles and environmental priorities to help guide Member States in designing their future rural development programmes.

A new IEEP report identifies some of the key factors to consider on how to get the most for the environment out of the Ecological Focus Area (EFA) measure under the proposals for the greening of direct payments. Based on the literature, past experience and a seminar Brussels, the report aims to identify the key parameters that need to be addressed in a new policy.

The Efra Committee’s inquiry report Greening the Common Agricultural Policy states that the one-size-fits all approach proposed by the Commission to green the CAP under Pillar 1 could negatively impact food security and is unlikely to deliver the desired environmental improvements. Instead, the report recommends developing a flexible approach to ‘greening’ that would enable individual Member States to decide measures tailored to their local circumstances and in line with their existing agri-environment schemes under Pillar 2.

What is the relationship between the management of agricultural land and biodiversity? To what extent are the EU’s biodiversity goals addressed through the CAP?

These questions form the focus on a new study by IEEP for DG Agriculture. It is based on a thorough review of the relationship between agriculture and biodiversity and considers how policies, particularly the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), have worked in terms of their design, coordination and implementation for sustaining biodiversity and associated ecosystem services through agriculture, and how their role can be enhanced in the future to contribute towards meeting the EU’s biodiversity goals.

In this report, LEI assesses the degree of simplification achieved in the CAP reform proposals. The assessment looks at the potential impact of the ten key simplification aspects and the legislative proposals on three main stakeholders (farmers, national authorities and the European Commission).

IEEP has just completed a study of all 88 RDPs in the EU-27 and created the first typology of entry-level agri-environment management actions and their potential contribution to EU environmental objectives. Case studies in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Italy, Poland and the UK show how these payments are used to incentivise environmental management just above the reference level, and how schemes are targeted, designed and revised.

A new ‘short guide’ to EU rural development after 2013 summarising all the main policy points.

The Scottish Agricultural College have issued a response to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee at the UK Parliament which was co-ordinated by the Rural Policy Centre in November 2011.

Two sets of new rural development case studies have just been released highlighting examples of how Pillar 2 CAP funds are supporting different types of food and forestry projects.

This Scottish Agricultural College Rural Policy Centre Briefing briefing discusses recent work to assess HNV farming systems in Scotland and to explore the use of different payment mechanisms to direct more funding to HNV farming systems in future.

RSPB and BirdLife International have collected examples from across Europe to show how agri-environment schemes are successfully delivering biodiversity and environmental objectives. The purpose of this paper is to celebrate environmental successes under the Common Agricultural Policy and demonstrate how competitive food production can be supported alongside environmental targets.

It is widely recognised that agriculture has an important role in the provision of a wide range of public goods in Europe and this forms a core element of the Commission’s current proposals for the future of the CAP post 2013, supported by Commissioners Ciolos (agriculture), Potocnik (environment) and Hedegaard (climate). However, there is still considerable lack of clarity on whether the proposals in their current form will deliver real improvements in practice, particularly for the environment. At the request of the Policy Unit of the European Parliament, this report considers some of the options for redesigning the CAP to deliver improved public goods outcomes, considering the pros and cons of different options financially, politically and in terms of their potential impacts.

A timely discussion paper explaining how a territorial approach can be developed within rural development policy and other aspects of the CAP.

This study identifies the scale of funding needed annually to achieve environmental outcomes through agricultural and forestry management by 2020 from the EU Budget. Based on an assessment of scale and nature of farm and forestry management needed to meet the EU’s environmental priorities, the study identified the costs of addressing these priorities through incentives for largely voluntary agricultural and forestry management in the EU-27. It covers the full range of environmental issues linked to rural land management including the protection and enhancement of biodiversity, water quality and quantity, soil, landscape, forest protection and climate change adaptation and mitigation. It includes case studies, providing context specific cost data for three particular environmental issues – arable farmland birds, HNV farmland and soil conservation in Southern Spain.