Ref. Ares(2016)1916384 - 22/04/2016
Ref. Ares(2016)5579867 - 27/09/2016
Inspiration note for the development of EU’s Common
Agricultural Policy: What changes are needed to make risk
management tools a suitable rural development measure?
“The more I learned about the use of pesticides, the more appalled I
became… What I discovered was that everything that meant most to me
as a naturalist was being threatened, and that nothing I could do
would be more important.”
1962
This reflection paper aims to investigate to what extent risk management tools offered
within the current rural development policy can encourage farmers to combine
economic and environmental sustainability, inspired by the Fondo Risemina Maize - a
risk management tool assisting adoption of Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
Within the current Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) it is mainly the rural development
policy, which compensates farmers economically for the adoption of integrated pest
management (IPM)1. One of the key arguments against IPM is the higher level of risk taken
by the farmer during the transition towards more sustainable systems. While the rural
development policy does allow Member States to offer farmers financial support to assist
farmers in the move towards real IPM, this potential is not being exploited to the full in the
CAP.
The subsidiary principle applied to EU’s Rural Development Policy (RDP) means that it is,
within certain limits, for the Member States to decide which measures of the rural
development policy to apply. Member States can offer risk insurances of crop, animal and
plants; and can also establish mutual funds - by using up to 3.5% of the national direct
payment envelopes - to compensate farmers for
‘losses due to adverse climatic events, the
outbreak of animal or plant diseases, pest infestation or environmental incidents or to
eradicate or contain a plant disease or pest’. The European Union has been slow in developing joint risk-management tools, crisis and
disaster management and some Member States have developed national schemes financed
by state aid. In the current CAP, 13 Member States have decided to offer risk-management
tools to farmers, and a spending of 1.7% of the total RDP is reserved for this measure.
However, very few Member States, if any, seem to consider that risk-management tools
could be used to assist the farmers financially helping them to confront potential risks when
moving towards IPM.
So far, PAN Europe has only identified
one interesting crop risk-management model,
Fondo Risemina Mais, developed in
2014 by a group of maize farmers in Veneto Italy,
covering 53.000 hectares able to ensure both environment and economic sustainability.
In the Fondo Risemina Mais
T
he farmer must comply with good agricultural practice and integrated pest management
(including crop rotation), follow the recommendations of the arable crop protection bulletins
from the Veneto Agriculture institute, and report any claims within the specified time periods.
The crop insurance will cover pest damage to maize (as well as damage due to adverse
weather conditions), covering pest losses mainly caused by wireworms (Elateridae), black
cutworms (
Agrotis ipsilon) and fungal diseases of the seed and seedling. Also the fund
covers significant
Diabrotica corn rootworm damage and damage from silk feeding.
1 See page 24 of http://www.pan-europe.info/sites/pan-europe.info/files/public/resources/reports/integrated-pest-
management-working-with-nature.pdf
PAN Europe believes this is a good example of a support mechanism encouraging
farms to adopt IPM principles. This model assists transitioning farmers by supporting
them financially against economic losses caused by possible plant diseases and pest
infestation while assisting the farmers technically in the adoption of IPM. Bulletins
inform farmers to undertake specific agronomic practices to prevent pests from
establishing. Independent technicians are making their research results into
alternatives available to farmers2 and in this way alternatives are promoted while
pesticides are only used as a last resort.
The model developed is fully in line with a number of EU policy tools including:
The
EU Directive 128/2009 on Sustainable Use of Pesticide which in article 14 says:
• Member States
shall establish or support the establishment of necessary conditions
for the implementation of integrated pest management. In particular, they
shall
ensure that professional users have at their disposal
information and tools for pest
monitoring and decision making, as well as
advisory services on integrated pest
management.
• Member States
shall establish appropriate
incentives to encourage professional
users to implement crop or sector-specific guidelines for integrated pest
management (IPM) on a voluntary basis.
The
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) regarding the Farm Advisory Service (FAS) where:
• Member States now
must inform about IPM; meaning that all farmers across the EU
territory has a right to be advised on environmental friendly agricultural practices and
alternatives to pesticides, and
• Member States
may inform about “risk management and the introduction of
appropriate preventive actions to address natural disasters, catastrophic events and
animal and plant diseases”.
However, the Fondo Risemina Mais has neither applied for EU funding nor national funding
to cover running and/or compensation costs. First, because the rural development program
of the region of Veneto does not foresee this kind of risk management; second, because the
members of Fondo Risemina Mais did not accept that financial losses can only be
compensated when production loss exceeds 30 per cent of the average of production in the
preceding three-year period, which is a set by the World Trade Organisation (article 8, annex
2 of the Uraguay Round Agreement on Agriculture) for green box domestic support of
international trade standards, and which the European Commission has decided to apply to
all measures of EU’s Rural Development Policy.
Risk management tools within the RDP could become a tool to accompany farmers in
reducing pesticide use. The European Commission should consider removing the
‘natural disaster support’ out of the green box support measure allowing farmers to be
compensated below 30% production loss. This would make sense if accompanied by
developing of real independent farm advisory services, giving room for organic
farmers to share knowledge with conventional farmers.
In the following reflection papers on which CAP for the future we will reflect on how to get more systemic thinking in
RDP.
RDP must move away from offering single measures to, instead, start offering packages of measures assisting farmers
financially and technically in the transition towards sustainable farming systems.
Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN Europe) was founded in 1987 and brings together consumer, public health,
environmental organisations, and women's groups from across Europe. PAN Europe is part of the global network PAN
International working to minimise the negative effects and replace the use of harmful pesticides with ecologically sound
alternatives.
For further information contact:
@pan-europe.info
2 http://www.vallevecchia.it/ in the idea of open farms open protocols