• The European Commission's report highlights the role of the CAP Strategic Plans in maintaining farmers' incomes and society's food security, while supporting the sector's transition to a sustainable model.
• The European Commission confirms that the new CAP is the most ambitious ever created from an environmental and climate perspective.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2023-2027 entered into force on 1 January 2023. This marked the beginning of the development of the 28 CAP Strategic Plans approved in 27 European Union (EU) countries (EU members have one Strategic Plan each, except Belgium, which has one for Flanders and one for Wallonia).

In November 2023, the European Commission published a synthesis report on the 28 approved Strategic Plans to assess the combined effort and collective ambition in addressing the 10 key CAP objectives. The report—entitled “Overview of the CAP Strategic Plans 2023-2027: Combined effort and collective ambition” —is based on the information contained in these plans, as well as qualitative assessments of the decisions taken by each Member State. This preliminary assessment summarizes the combined contributions of the interventions carried out by each country—to address the specific objectives of the CAP, along with the six Green Deal targets—across three clear milestones:

• Income for farmers and development of rural areas
• Environment and climate action
• Social sustainability (including animal welfare)

Climate and environmental ambition

The report emphasizes that the new CAP is the most ambitious ever created from an environmental and climate perspective. It has a budget of €307 billion, of which €264 billion comes from the EU budget and an additional €43 billion from national funds.

CAP interventions are aimed at:

1. Fair distribution of agricultural income

A stable food supply is one of the long-standing objectives of the CAP. Key to this is:

• Support agricultural income
• Ensure fair distribution for smaller farms
• Reducing income disparities in the most vulnerable sectors
• Modernize farms
• Addressing generational change through plans that encourage young farmers to stay.

More than 10% of EU direct payments, representing €4 billion annually, will be reallocated through redistributive payments benefiting small and medium-sized farms. This payment is double the amount received compared to the previous period.

2. Ecological transition

The largest financial contribution of the CAP 2023-2027 comes from green plans and environmental and climate commitments under rural development, with €44.7 billion and €33.2 billion respectively.

As a new feature, the CAP incorporates eco-regimes , a cross-compliance principle that applies to 90% of agricultural land used in the EU and plays a fundamental role in the integration of sustainable agricultural practices. The new Plans allocate 32% of the total CAP budget to voluntary actions that promote the environmental, climate, and animal welfare objectives of the CAP 2023-2027. Flexibility is the predominant characteristic when it comes to opting for these new schemes, which gives Member States absolute freedom to design them according to the characteristics and needs of each agricultural sector. For example, Spain offers additional funding for sustainable grazing and mowing practices to reduce soil degradation and improve biodiversity.

Apart from eco-regimes, other measures stand out, such as:

• Soil protection : practices for carbon sequestration and storage in soil and biomass. The goal is for 35% of EU agricultural land to increase carbon sequestration and reduce nitrous oxide emissions.
• Organic farming : The CAP aims to cultivate 25% of EU agricultural land organically. It is expected that by 2027, approximately 10% of land will be cultivated organically with CAP support, up from 5.6% in 2020.

3. Social sustainability

The CAP's national Strategic Plans also help promote social sustainability and encourage efforts to revitalize the agricultural sector. Some of the issues addressed include:

• The wide variety of socioeconomic needs in rural areas underscores the importance of the LEADER approach and the development of the “smart villages” strategy.
• The "bottom-up" LEADER approach, in which rural businesses, local organizations, public authorities, and people from different sectors work together, accounts for 7.7% of total EU rural development funds.
• Generational renewal represents another challenge for safeguarding food security and rural areas in the long term. Hence, the plans seek to recruit 377,000 young farmers to enter the agricultural sector. This represents an increase in almost all Member States, which also exceeds the minimum financial allocations required.

4. Innovation

The report also concludes that the outcome of the plans will depend largely on the level of commitment, knowledge, and innovation of the agricultural community. Therefore, innovation, along with the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS), is essential in this new agricultural era.

In this regard, the Commission notes that greater efforts are needed to enable more farms to adopt digital technologies and innovation. Similarly, advice, training, and knowledge sharing will not be covered by the planned financial allocation during this period.

Pending matters

The report also recognizes areas for which each Member State's Strategic Plan could have shown a higher level of ambition or other approaches. For example, regarding environmental disasters or social crises, the Commission calls for greater use of risk management tools. The report states that Member States may not always use CAP funding for this purpose and instead implement national insurance schemes.

Another shortcoming is the sector's digital transition , as well as the necessary complementarity of the CAP with other national and EU funds to achieve the objectives of the Green Deal, Farm to Fork, and the Biodiversity Strategy.