Payments designed to encourage farmers to ‘go green’ are unlikely to enhance the Common Agricultural Policy’s environmental and climate-related performance significantly, according to a new report from the European Court of Auditors.
The auditors found that the new payments added more complexity to the system but had led to changed farming practices on only about 5% of EU farmland.
Greening is a new type of direct payment introduced with the 2013 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It was designed to reward farmers for having a positive impact on the environment.
The auditors examined whether greening was capable of enhancing the CAP’s environmental and climate performance in accordance with EU objectives.
Samo Jereb, the member of the European Court of Aurditors responsible for the report, said: “Greening remains essentially an income support scheme … As currently implemented, it is unlikely to enhance the CAP’s environmental and climate performance significantly.”
The auditors found that the European Commission had not developed a complete intervention logic for greening payments. Nor did it set clear, sufficiently ambitious environmental targets for greening to achieve.
