Stabilizing food prices across Europe needs to be a top priority, Europe's agriculture ministers agree. The hard part will be deciding how to best reform the system. Current European Union agricultural policy encourages farmers to keep land fallow, a practice that seems to contradict the rising global demand for food. The EU seems likely to acknowledge it needs to put more land into production when it announces agricultural reforms on Tuesday, May 20. One solution would be for the EU to phase out its program of paying farmers to keep farmland out of production, hoping that it will help stabilize food prices. "I think it's important that we continue to increase production in Europe as much as we can within the natural limits, also taking into account environmental care," Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told the DPA news agency.
Current European Union agricultural policy encourages farmers to keep land fallow, a practice that seems to contradict the rising global demand for food. The EU seems likely to acknowledge it needs to put more land into production when it announces agricultural reforms on Tuesday, May 20.
One solution would be for the EU to phase out its program of paying farmers to keep farmland out of production, hoping that it will help stabilize food prices.
"I think it's important that we continue to increase production in Europe as much as we can within the natural limits, also taking into account environmental care," Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told the DPA news agency.
you are the media you consume.
The commission proposes to get rid of a requirement for farmers to leave 10 percent of their fields fallow for a year in order to make more land available for production.
Subsidised fallow is rather less than half of that.
Fallow includes land that is not usable for industrial farming (for economic/mechanical reasons like small field size). More land (I don't have a total figure) is "set aside" and subsidised for specific purposes that may include environmental protection (wetlands, woodlands) or extensive grazing.
The exact final details of what land will be freed for intensive use will depend on each member state's application of the new rules. The EU sets the overall frame, the member states do the detailed implementation.
