CAP goes down the green path into unknown territory

Comment

Rolandas Taraskevicius of the Lithuania delegation in the recent EU Council where agriculture ministers adopted the Green Deal strategies. They agreed that 20% of farmer income support  from the EU will be linked to extra environmental protection practices. Only Lithuania voted against. Latvia, Bulgaria, and Romania abstained.

If the EU wants a 50% reduction in pesticide use, and a 20% reduction in fertiliser use, why does it also want an increase to 25% of EU land used for organic farming?

Cutting pesticide and fertiliser use reduces the perceived “sustainability” gap between organic and conventional food production, thus reducing one of the arguments to increase organic land use.