European Agricultural Policy Research Articles

In recent decades, environmental and agricultural administrations have increasingly relied on geospatial tools, such as GIS and satellite imagery. Within European agricultural policy, this digitalisation of nature serves both environmental conservation and budgetary discipline agendas. This article links the critical analysis of GIS instruments to the study of environmental subjectivities. Drawing on interviews with advisers, inspectors and farmers in southwestern France, I show how new forms of quantifying abandoned and grazed marginal lands shape farmers’ environmental subjectivities related to shrub encroachment. Intended to integrate non-herbaceous resources into area-based subsidies, the procedure studied perpetuates the local distaste and the systematic mechanised removal of this type of vegetation. Therefore, it reinforces land control by increasingly capitalised farms instead of the emerging small-scale pastoral systems. These results contribute to the study of government spatial technologies and how they become entangled with local environmental subjectivities and related power dynamics.

ABSTRACT Voting on legislative acts on agriculture can be contentious: public pressure towards transforming European agricultural policies is high. At the same time, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) need to ensure policies protect jobs, guarantee food security, and deliver reasonable prices. As a result, far-reaching EU regulations on sustainability or animal welfare have been difficult to agree on. Despite the heterogeneity of ideas and contestation of interests characterising agricultural policymaking, there is a lack of empirical studies investigating the patterns and dynamics related to MEP votes on agricultural policy drafts. To explain MEPs’ voting behaviour, we analyse votes on agricultural acts during three legislative periods (EP7, EP8 and EP9, 2009-2022) by applying a quantitative coding scheme for exceptionalist and post-exceptionalist voting drafts and estimating logit panel regressions. Drawing on theories of partisan politics, we hypothesise that MEPs belonging to conservative political groups are more likely to favour acts related to exceptionalist policy goals whereas MEPs belonging to the Greens/EFA are more likely to favour drafts related to post-exceptionalism and sustainability. Our empirical results only partly support these expectations, they also reveal the role of country membership and the need to examine differences over time.

The agricultural sector is under increasing pressure to adopt sustainable practices without compromising profitability. A sustainable farm focuses on natural processes and renewable resources rather than on synthetic inputs. Social and digital innovations create new opportunities to address these challenges. Collective Awareness Platforms (CAPs) provide a socio-technical tool designed to encourage collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the adoption of sustainable practices among farmers. This research analyzes the potential of CAPs in a part of Greek agriculture based on data gathered from 182 participants in Macedonia and Thessaly. Results indicate that although 97.8% of participants use digital devices, awareness of CAPs remains very limited. Despite that, 51.1% were open to adopting new methods, and CAPs scored impressively high for their potential in knowledge transmission (μ = 4.21). These findings uncover both the potential benefits and challenges we face in integrating CAPs into sustainable farming. Policy implications involve the necessity to improve digital literacy and provide training, supported by European agricultural policies.

This article critically examines the role of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in shaping the development trajectory of rural areas in Bulgaria. Emphasis is placed on the evolution of CAP measures, their economic, social, and environmental impacts, and their contribution to the structural transformation of Bulgarian agriculture since EU accession. The analysis explores key policy instruments under Pillar I (direct payments) and Pillar II (rural development programmes), with a focus on modernization, competitiveness, sustainability, and demographic resilience. Drawing on strategic policy documents, statistical data, and comparative assessments, the study evaluates the extent to which CAP interventions have supported income stability, stimulated employment, enhanced biodiversity protection, and improved infrastructure in rural regions. Findings indicate that EU support has significantly increased farm productivity, diversified local economies, and strengthened environmental practices, although persistent structural challenges, such as land fragmentation, unequal distribution of subsidies, and demographic decline, continue to limit the full realization of rural development objectives. The article concludes by highlighting policy priorities and strategic directions for the post-2027 programming period, including digital transformation, targeted support for small and medium-sized farms, and stronger integration with cohesion and Green Deal policies.

Abstract Conserving biodiversity, especially in agricultural landscapes, is a major societal challenge. Broad scientific evidence exists on the impacts of single drivers on biodiversity, such as the intensification of agriculture. However, halting biodiversity decline requires a systemic understanding of the interactions between multiple drivers, which has hardly been achieved so far. Selecting Germany as a case study, the goal of our analysis is (i) to understand how various socio‐economic drivers of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes interact at the national scale, (ii) to identify plausible pathways that most likely will lead to an improvement of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes and (iii) to discuss guiding principles for policy‐making based on the pathways. We applied the expert‐based Cross‐Impact‐Balance (CIB) methodology to the German agri‐food system (target year 2030). Seven descriptors that represent the most relevant socio‐economic drivers of biodiversity (here, we focus on species richness) in agricultural landscapes in Germany were defined. In three workshops with different groups of experts, we assessed all the interactions and impacts between these descriptors. From the workshops, seven overlapping scenarios were identified and aggregated into four main future pathways for enhancing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. These pathways are: (1) ‘Innovation and stricter legislation’, (2) ‘Major change in protein production and CAP shift’, (3) ‘Major change in protein production and national legislation’ and (4) ‘Major social changes compensate for a lack of innovation in food production’. Socio‐economic drivers interact to varying degrees. Societal values have a strong active influence on the system, e. g. agricultural policy, whereas the orientation and objectives of agriculture, e. g. focus on public goods, are rather passively determined. Conserving biodiversity thus depends upon the evolution of societal values, European and national nature conservation and agricultural policies, innovations in plant and protein production as well as on global commodity markets. A key message for policymakers is that there are generally different, complementary options for achieving the objective of improving biodiversity. This is important when specific drivers such as the CAP cannot be steered in a particular desired direction. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

ABSTRACTThe Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) represents one of the main initiatives of the European Union (EU) to develop and enhance agricultural sectors. This paper applies text mining and clustering to analyse changes in the CAP's main policy objectives based on 495 legislative texts adopted by the European Parliament. We develop an SSCIR‐3F analysis framework that identifies five core CAP policy concerns—food security (S), sustainability (S), competitiveness (C), farmer income (I), and rural development (R), abbreviated as SSCIR—illustrates their internal conflicts using the conflict triangle, and explains their changing importance over time using agricultural development stage theory (food, farm, and future, 3F). The text mining results show that the importance of these five dimensions has gradually shifted. Sustainability has become the most prominent dimension in recent years, followed by farmer income, food security, and rural development. Clusters of documents further support this trend, with two clusters emphasising biodiversity, ecosystems, forests, and climate change. The changing trend of budget allocation also supports our results that the major concerns of CAP have been shifting over time. Overall, the evolving SSCIR priorities indicate that the CAP is moving towards a fairer, greener, and more flexible direction.

The topicality of the topic: The agricultural sector is vital to the national economy. A key factor in maintaining the well-being of the population is the human resource to specific activities in the sector, in the context of the common European agricultural policy union. The research aims to assess the human factor as a tool for achieving sustainability in the agricultural sector of the economy. In terms of methods – in the study are used statistical methods, including arithmetic mean (arithmetic average) value, median, fashion. The development focuses on finding new income opportunities in the agricultural sector and tracking the digital skills of the population - with an emphasis on the Human Development Index - The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI). The main results of the study of the achievements of human capital development are reduced to the identified need for new knowledge, respectively the growing need to acquire and maintain modern skills. This applies as a matter of priority to the managers of agricultural and livestock farms without completed education in the field of agriculture. This requires permanent qualification and retraining of employees in the agricultural sector. In conclusion, there is an opinion that the development of human potential requires training adequate to current technologies. The limited land as a resource for production requires the search for new opportunities for income in the agricultural sector. Regarding the research novelty on the developed issues - digital skills are perceived as a major factor in determining human capital, from this position the achievements in the individual member states of the European Union are followed. Study limitation - access to current public data. The development of a sustainable national agricultural sector is a guarantee of food security and independence, vibrant rural areas and employment of the local population.

Current publications that are shaping public perception repeatedly claim that residues of plant protection products (PPP) in the environment demonstrate gaps in assessing the exposure and effects of PPP, allegedly revealing the inability of the European regulatory system to prevent environmental contamination and damage such as biodiversity decline. The hypothesis is that environmental risk assessments rely on inappropriate predictive models that underestimate exposure and do not explicitly account for the impact of combinations of environmental stressors and physiological differences in stress responses. This article puts this criticism into context to allow for a more balanced evaluation of the European regulatory system for PPP. There is broad consensus that the decline in biodiversity is real. This article analyzed current literature for causes of this decline and of chemical contamination. The main drivers identified were land use changes and structural uniformity of agricultural landscapes or multiple contaminants emitted by various sources such as wastewater discharge systems. Comparing measured environmental concentrations from published monitoring studies with exposure predictions from the regulatory risk assessment reveals only slight occasional exceedances for a few environmental scenarios and compounds. Therefore, the call for greater conservatism in the European authorization process for PPPs will not lead to an improvement in the environmental situation. We suggest enhancing landscape diversity through the European Union Common Agricultural Policy and reducing contamination from wastewater and farmyard effluents. The current regulatory risk management toolbox should be expanded to include flexible localized mitigation measures and treatment options to reduce applied amounts and off-target exposure.

The issue of agricultural turnover is high on the policy agenda of the European Community and political and social scientists. A structural feature of the European agricultural system, for which no solution has yet been found, is the difficult access of persons under 40 to positions of ownership and control of agricultural holdings. Although methodological simplifications tend to underestimate the real generational change in farming, the problem remains unresolved and requires appropriate responses that will encourage the fight against aging of agricultural sector. An attempt has been made to move in this direction with the CAP measure SRG004, entitled “Cooperation for generational renewal”. It provides a mechanism for the possibility of establishing cooperation between a farmer over 65 and a newcomer. A check on the implementation of SRG004 in Italy revealed: None of the Italian regions had adopted the measure. Based on this information, qualitative research was organized. The aim was to find out the reasons for this generalization. The research highlighted some of the mechanisms of implementation of multi-level agricultural policies in Europe, in addition to trying to answer the initial question.

Objectives: This study analyzes Britain’s policy towards European economic integration in the 1950s, focusing on the political and economic factors that led to its cautious stance on joining groups like the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC). Methods: A historical-analytical approach was used to examine the events and factors influencing Britain’s policy and its hesitancy toward European economic integration. This analysis was conducted through a comprehensive review of relevant literature and historical records related to Britain’s approach to European integration. Results: Britain’s refusal to join European economic groups in the 1950s was largely driven by concerns over national sovereignty and a sense of pride among the British political elite in maintaining the nation’s global influence. Additionally, Britain was wary of the European agricultural policies, which posed potential challenges to British farmers who feared unfair competition and negative impacts on the domestic agricultural sector. Conclusion: The study concludes that Britain’s approach to European economic integration during the 1950s was marked by a strong emphasis on protecting national interests and sovereignty. Despite this cautious stance, Western Europe continued with integration efforts, resulting in the establishment of the EEC without Britain’s involvement.

The convergence of emerging sustainability regulations and recommendations outlined in the European, national and regional agricultural policies, coupled with the growing demand from retailers for food produced through more sustainable agriculture practices, presents a substantial challenge for farmers. This challenge is further exacerbated by their limited access to essential information, knowledge, and resources necessary for compliance, which are often acquired through interactions with various stakeholders within the agri-food supply chain. Moreover, the inherent power asymmetry between small-scale farmers and their considerably larger counterparts, including input suppliers and agricultural product buyers, exposes farmers to opportunistic behaviours. In response to these challenges, agri-food cooperatives have been proposed as an organizational solution to mitigate opportunistic behaviour. However, empirical data-supported evidence of this proposition remains scarce. Drawing upon data obtained from Spanish farmers, our study investigates the impact of agri-food cooperatives on the incidence of opportunistic practices experienced by farmers during their interactions with suppliers and buyers. Through a propensity score matching analysis, our findings reveal that cooperative membership exerts a statistically significant negative influence on both supplier and buyer opportunism in the context of complying with sustainability requirements. These findings provide compelling empirical evidence of the pivotal role played by agri-food cooperatives in addressing opportunism within the supply chain. Importantly, they underscore the vital importance of cooperatives in mitigating the challenges associated with enhancing sustainability in agriculture.

Excessive exploitation of natural resources has an environmental impact on ecosystems due to demographic and economic growth, and energy demand. For this reason, world economies have been implementing policy tools to achieve eco-friendly energy growth, minimizing environmental impact. It is necessary to increase Renewable Energies (RE) fraction in terms of electricity supply, improve energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption in greenhouses as well as in the agricultural sector. Thus, the European Green Deal (EGD) is a sustainable package of measures which, due to the ecological use of natural resources, strengthens the resilience of European food systems. The EGD’s objectives include: ensuring food security, reducing environmental impact, and supporting the farm to fork strategy and energy communities. The aim of this review is to present innovative energy technologies integrated with agrivoltaic systems to produce and utilize energy with eco-friendly methods. In this review, agrivoltaic systems were presented in the EGD perspective, since, as shown by several studies, they increase simultaneously clean energy production and crop yield, avoiding limitations in land use. As agrivoltaic systems produce energy by the installation of PV panels, an overview of PV technology was provided. PV panels can feed electricity to the power grid. Nowadays, since there are many impoverished rural areas which do not have access to electricity, a lot of projects have been developed that utilize power generation from microgrids combined with hybrid systems (e.g., wind and solar energy) to feed agricultural facilities or community buildings.

Beekeeping has faced increasing difficulties during the past decades, among which is the decline in floral resources. Agriculture provides essential floral resources for beekeeping, but some farming practices have also been shown to be responsible for their decline. To provide floral resources for beekeeping, what type of agricultural transformation should be promoted, and how? To answer these questions, we still lack knowledge about the floral resources that are used by beekeeping and about the technical-economic obstacles that farmers face in implementing more favorable farming practices, particularly in agropastoral settings. To help fill these gaps, we develop a novel approach that frames both agropastoral farming and beekeeping as farming systems, by characterizing the beekeeping systems of a given place, the floral resources they use, and the impacts these farming systems have on floral resources. This approach is applied to the agropastoral landscapes of Mount Lozère, southern France, using a methodology based on semi-structured interviews with farmers and beekeepers addressing the agronomical functioning of their farms. We demonstrate that the floral resources used by beekeepers on Mount Lozère are threatened by the current dominant agricultural development paths, which seek to maximize the material productivity of labor. Such paths lead to the intensification of agricultural practices in harvested areas and the extensification of rangelands. These pathways are reinforced by the low remuneration of agropastoral labor and by the current rules of the European Union Common Agricultural Policy. “Frugal” farming, a farming system based on reduced inputs and investments, and labor-intensive practices, namely, a labor-intensive use of pasture, seems an effective way to produce floral resources. Both, agropastoral farmers and beekeepers, would benefit from an increase in the number of agricultural workers in agropastoral landscapes. This calls for public policies that promote a better remuneration of agropastoral labor, either directly or by driving market mechanisms.

40 years of the bavarian contract-based nature conservation programme – the history of the largest nature conservation funding programme in Germany // The Bavarian contract-based nature conservation programme (CBCP) has now existed for over 40 years. In 2024, with annual expenditure of around 95 million euros, around 164,000 hectares of funded area and 29,000 farmers involved, it will be the largest nature conservation funding program in Germany. It went through many changes, overcame some hurdles and developed into the central Bavarian funding program. The aim is to preserve and develop ecologically valuable habitats and their species in the Bavarian agricultural landscape. Although this goal is largely being implemented on contracted nature conservation areas, a general trend reversal in terms of species decline has not yet been achieved. Here we take a look at the history of the contractual nature conservation program, but also at the overcome and current challenges of the European agricultural policy, which is closely linked to the funding program.

Abstract Farming is a stressful occupation with many farmers facing daily uncertainty and high mental health risks. In addition to unpredictable occupations, rapidly changing European and Irish agricultural policies may put farmers in a liminal state. We aimed to identify sources of occupational stress or well‐being for Irish farmers, particularly regarding change in their lives and communities. We collected data online through semistructured interviews with 17 farmers and 1 interview and 3 focus groups with 11 farming stakeholders. We identified four central narratives (N1‐4) through narrative analysis. In N1, participants described how rapid changes could create stress by exacerbating uncertainty and threatening farmers' financial security. Participants described how these changes to standards for “good farming” (N2) and rural culture (N3) result in lost income, identity, and well‐being. In N4, participants identified ways in which work of farming can be therapeutic. Our findings add to literature on the impacts of uncertainty and liminality on farmers by identifying how deeply changes in agricultural models can impact farmers' identities and well‐being as they grapple with new and old occupational pressures. We suggest that economic policy and agricultural governance prioritize farmers' financial security and mental health through policy change and acknowledge their valuable contributions.

Growing consumer interest in caring for the environment has motivated the development of multiple studies focused on discovering this variable’s impact on purchasing behaviour. However, a major gap still exists between attitude and pro-environmental behaviour caused by the need for greater environmental awareness, among other things. Therefore, knowing the environmental issues that worry consumers of agrifood products is important. This work digs deeper into this issue by analysing these environmental concerns and examining differences between countries with different levels of environmental sensitivity. CAWI methodology has been used to conduct an online survey in four countries (Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Denmark), with 3200 valid responses analysed using qualitative and quantitative techniques. The obtained results highlight the existence of 11 major environmental dimensions or issues for consumers of agri-food products. In addition, a correspondence analysis identifies two key factors, the first focused on a range of environmental problems of a more general nature and the second with greater interest focused on concern for biodiversity conservation. This study has implications for both the agri-food sector and European agricultural policy.

Short-term estimates are not suitable for monitoring and comparing fluctuating pesticide use in EU agricultural land. A discriminative and comparable (HI) herbicide index was evaluated to elucidate herbicide use in the 21st century. The HI was 0.66 kg of active substances per hectare of conventional agricultural land across the EU. However, the HI varied between the 27 EU Member States. The highest mean values of HI were observed in Belgium, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Germany, France, and Denmark, with the lowest in Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, and Latvia. The results showed that the distribution of the HI variable was independent of the geographical location of each country, such as from North to South or from West to East in the EU. It seems that country-level agri-environmental parameters ultimately influenced the herbicide use. To assess the causes of this variability, 31 agri-environmental parameters (formatted into indices to be comparable) were investigated, emphasizing the structural characteristics of the agricultural sector in each EU Member State. Using only the significant independent variables (13 out of 31), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) was applied to explore the differentiation potential of EU27 by creating a discrimination model. The assessment of each one variable in the HI could contribute to the reduction in environmental impacts and the faultless implementation of the European agricultural policy in the near future.

Ukraine, despite the damages and losses inflicted on agriculture by Russian large-scale aggression, actively participates in the implementation of the main tasks of the global goals defined by the European strategy for sustainable development. The purpose of the article is to analyze the relationship between the policy of sustainable rural development of the European Union and the possibilities of its implementation in various spheres of life, economic, social, ecological, and institutional to support sustainable rural development in Ukraine. Ukraine is an active participant in the implementation of the system of transfer of knowledge and innovations in the agricultural sector – Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems at the regional level, since the rural population needs to increase its own level of awareness of opportunities and potential risks in conducting economic activities and understanding of rational use of resources. The methodology includes analysis of the report on monitoring progress in achieving the goals of sustainable development in the context of the EU, which are directly related to agriculture or the development of rural areas, directives of the Commission of the European Union, statistical data of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, primary and secondary sources. The originality of the article lies in the fact that in the article for the first time covers a detailed analysis of the indicators of the goals of sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas and their correspondence to the tasks of the strategy of the common European agricultural policy. The results of the analysis can be used in planning future projects for rural communities or agricultural enterprises to improve their social and economic situation

After the end of the COVID 19 outbreak, the authors summarise the measures taken by the European Union to ensure the continuity of food supply and the functioning of the food chain during the outbreak. In addition to the EU measures, the specific measures followed by the Member States and their room for manoeuvre are presented using the Hungarian example. In this article we have also tried to elaborate the implications for the European Agricultural Policy and consequently for European Agriculture. The literature we have elaborated also covers the agricultural market processes and the implications for rural areas. However, this article focuses on the Hungarian public law implications of the legislation and the Hungarian judgement practical issues of its application.Our article also discusses the link between the extreme drought year 2022 and the pandemic. We will look at why the extraordinary legal instruments used under COVID '19 were appropriate to deal with the consequences of extreme weather.

Current trends in the development of agricultural production necessitate the attraction of additional financial resources to finance the agricultural sector, which are specific to each national economy. The article examines the priority directions of development of the mechanism for financing agricultural production in Ukraine in the context of current trends in the implementation of the common agricultural policy in Europe. A comparative analysis of the mechanism of additional financing of agricultural production in the EU countries was carried out in the implementation of the common agricultural policy. Clustering of European countries was carried out while taking into account the existence of patterns in the agricultural market and it was confirmed that these patterns do not determine the features and volumes of additional financing of agricultural production. The existence of twelve possible types of markets of agricultural products in European countries is determined and the existence in practice of six of them is confirmed. It is determined that there are significant violations in the policy of convergence of financing of the agricultural sector declared by the OAP, which confirms the need to reform the Common Agricultural Policy of European countries in the direction of greater compliance with the national problems of the European agricultural sector.It has been determined that there is a specific list of development problems that is not repeated for any of the European countries for the agricultural sector of Ukraine, and its own type of agricultural market has been formed, which also has no correspondence. The article focuses on the need to form in Ukraine a specific mechanism of additional financing of agricultural production, taking into account the problems of development of the national agricultural sector and in the context of the Common Agrarian Policy of the Economic Community, its priorities and direction of reform.