BEATLES provided feedback to the EU consultation on EU farm policy – strengthening farmers’ position in the food supply chain which is expected to receive inputs from 13 January 2025 to 10 March 2025. The project welcomes the reasoning in the proposal which states: the challenges of the agricultural sector are driven by factors that are external to agriculture and require a broader policy response.
BEATLES ”Co-creating Behavioural Change Towards Climate-Smart Food Systems” aspires to change the way agri-food systems currently operate and accelerate behavioural shift to Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) and smart farming technologies. AEIDL (European Association for Innovation in Local Development) leads the work package 5 on transition through policy recommendations and tools. Blanca Casares, Policy Expert at AEIDL, coordinates the reply in colaboration with other work partners.
The notion of fairness is fundamental to the development of recommendations in the BEATLES project. Perceptions of fairness are key to committing actors to change and to achieve large-scale and long-term transitions towards climate-smart food systems. We work with the four dimensions of fairness: 1) distributive fairness, 2) procedural fairness, 3) interpersonal fairness, 4) informational fairness.
BEATLES welcomes the subsidiarity assessment that the amendments seek to setting out rules on the use of cross-sectoral optional terms for “fair”, “equitable” and equivalent terms, as well as for “short supply chains”. However, BEATLES regret that in the recital (3) there is limitation of use only to designate commercial modalities that ensure stability and transparency in commercial relations between farmers and purchasers and pricing considered equitable by participating farmers, and that support and contribute to the UN SDGs. The project recommends researching at the chain level and expanding the concept of the terms ‘fair’, ‘fairness’, ‘equitable’ or equivalent terms to the four dimensions.
The project supports reinforcing the rules on contractualisation to ensure transparency and predictability in the calculation of the final price. It may also establish risk mitigation clauses, encourage CSA practices, by including specific requirements and incentives and improve the quality of the products delivered.
We welcome measures to facilitate the generational renewal related to investments made by young farmers as this is one of the barriers identified in the BEATLES Use Cases that prevent the adoption of CSA practices, planning and investments in the medium term.
Moreover, BEATLES proposes the following recommendations should be taken into consideration in the proposal:
- Provide guidance to Member States on their flexibility regarding financial allocations for direct payments and ‘other’ sector interventions, aligning them with CAP objectives beyond farm income.
- Ensure producer organisations justify fund transfers for adverse events and collaborate with administrations to develop mandatory adaptation plans, including practice and input changes.
- Acknowledge the urgency of action but note the lack of impact assessments to evaluate proposed measures.
- Strengthen the PMEF (Annex I, Regulation (EU) 2021/2115) by complementing relevant indicators (Impact I.8, Result R.10PR, R.11) and providing measurement guidance for Member States.
Read here BEATLES full contribution.
Read here the Briefing of the European Parliamentary Research Service.
