Environmentalists

The CAP has a poor environmental record: agriculture is doing a lot more harm to the environment than it should, and not as much good as it could. Environmentalists push several reform proposals:

• dedicating significantly more money to agri-environmental payments that reward ecologically responsible farming practices
• expanding subsidies for research and development for more sustainable farming
• strengthening ecological aspects throughout the second pillar, such as subsidies for training in ecologically responsible farming, for environmentally friendly farm investments, and for ecological producer networks
• removing subsidies that are environmentally harmful, for instance renovation of farm buildings destroying habitats for birds and bats
• stricter oversight of national programs through the European Commission to ensure that ecological objectives are respected

Mobilization is not the main challenge with environmentalists. They have a long tradition of CAP critique and the perspective of a green revolution in post-2013 agricultural policies will unleash their campaigning energies. The difficult task ahead is to integrate environmentalists into a coalition for fundamental CAP reform and to avoid them joining forces with less ambitious reformers. Additional thoughts on how to integrate environmentalists can be found here.