Three own-initiative MEP papers were adopted at a mini plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels on 5 – 6 May. The reports, on agriculture in Less Favoured Areas (LFAs), the Animal Welfare Action Plan and EU agriculture and climate change were drafted by MEPs Herbert Dorfmann, Marit Paulsen and Stéphane Le Foll, respectively.

Work begun last week on reworking the US Farm Bill which, like its European counterpart the CAP, is likely to face budget cuts in the coming period in order to address the current budget deficit.

A public debate has been launched on the future of the CAP to engage stakeholders and wider civil society in discussions on what the objectives for the CAP after 2013 should be.

A new report released by the FAO, entitled Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Dairy Sector calculates the contribution of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions associated with the dairy food chain.

At an expert hearing held by the Agricultural Committee of the European Parliament on 17 March, Liberal Democrat MEP George Lyon emphasised that a future CAP should ensure sustainable production, environmental protection and a fair income for farmers.

An alliance of European, national and local civil society organisations concerned with the future of food and agriculture in Europe, are today launching a ‘European food declaration’ to mobilise European citizens and authorities to reshape the CAP.

In a recent debate about a future CAP, members of the EU Parliament’s Agriculture and Rural Development Committee discussed the need to integrate environmental policies into the CAP in light of population and climate changes.

At the first Agriculture Council of the Spanish Presidency new Council President Spanish Minister Elena Espinosa outlined the Presidency priorities for agriculture over the next six months.

A UK Government report analysing the price spikes for agricultural commodities in 2007/08, concludes that these were exacerbated by poorly performing markets. Authors argue for a further opening up of the international agricultural market and specifically, for the EU to “phase out agricultural subsidies such as Pillar 1 of the CAP" over market intervention protecting consumers.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has released two new papers entitled “Review of evidence on drylands pastoral systems and climate change: Implications and opportunities for mitigation and adaptation,” and “Organic Agriculture and Carbon Sequestration: Possibilities and constraints for the consideration of organic agriculture within carbon accounting systems.”

A new report published by DG Agriculture shows that reducing CAP Pillar One payments by up to 20 per cent appears to have a negligible impact on agricultural commodity production and the viability of farm businesses at the EU level, while redirecting these funds to Pillar Two, leads to significant additional beneficial impacts.

IEEP and WWF launch a discussion paper to raise the profile of biodiversity in the context of the EU budget.

The conclusions of last months Agriculture and Fisheries Council, including key decisions on the Common Fisheries Policy Controls, the dairy situation, poultry marketing standards and GMOs.

Agriculture must become more productive if it is to feed a much larger world population while responding to the daunting environmental challenges ahead, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf told 300 experts from around the world at a two day forum discussing policy responses to the impacts of climate change.

Speculation surrounding the future of a post 2013 EU budget was fuelled last week with the leaking of a first draft of the Commission’s paper emanating from the 2008/2009 EU Budget Review.

The Danish Presidency of the EU began on 1 January 2012 outlining four principal themes for the forthcoming six months: 'A responsible Europe; a dynamic Europe; a green Europe; and a safe Europe’. In terms of the CAP reform discussions, the Danish EU Presidency and the Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Mette Gjerskov, have stressed the need for both a green and market-oriented CAP.

The Commission published its Legal Proposals for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2013 on 12 October 2011. This is the first time that decisions on CAP reform have involved the European Parliament as well as the European Council under the ordinary legislative procedure. As such there is considerable uncertainty as to how long the process of negotiation and reaching agreement will take.

Today’s proposals from the Commission on the future CAP could have represented a major step towards improved environmental management across the EU, but in practice they leave major doubts over how much really will be delivered. Bold ambitions to green the CAP have become diluted by a focus on increasing the legitimacy of direct payments to farmers - at the expense of measures capable of maximising the delivery of environmental public goods. One of the reasons for this is that the new green payments under Pillar 1 have to be applicable in all parts of the EU and paid annually. This creates real challenges for sustaining substantive environmental improvements over time.

The leaked CAP proposals have sparked initial reactions by a number of policy stakeholders.