National CAP Strategic Plans – A Big Step on the Road to 25% Organic

By the end of 2022, EU Member States had finalised their CAP Strategic Plans, including organic support from 2023 to 2027. For the first time, all EU countries are providing support for organic farming and have set targets for the organic land area by 2027 or 2030.

Since 1990, most EU Member States (MS) have supported the conversion and maintenance of organic farming as an agri-environmental measure, which also provides rural economic development benefits thanks to the organic market. This support has been evaluated under previous EU and German government-funded research projects (Lampkin & Sanders, 2022). The EU Regulations defining organic farming during this period have provided a legal basis for both policy support and market development. This has resulted in a steady growth of the organic sector in EU over the last two decades, with the EU27 land area growing from a little over 4Mha in 2000 to almost 15Mha in 2021 (Figure 1).

From 2023 to 2027, a new CAP framework has been put in place, which sees MS taking responsibility for defining their own actions, and the EU focusing on defining strategic objectives for the CAP, including for climate and biodiversity. MS must show how their actions will contribute to these objectives. In addition, the EU’s Green Deal for climate, through the linked Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies, has set a target of 25% of EU farmland to be organic by 2030. The EU organic action plan from 2021 also encouraged MS to include specific strategies for organic support in their CAP SPs.

Our first analysis of the national CAP Strategic Plans (SPs) finalised in 2022 indicates that MS are aiming to almost double the area supported by 2027 compared with 2018 (Table 1). For the first time, all MS will provide financial support for organic conversion and maintenance, and all MS have set targets for the land area to be organic, either in their CAP SPs or in their national organic action plans (OAPs).

If successful, the organic area in the EU could reach 15% of farmland by 2027, but this still leaves a big gap to bridge to get to 25% by 2030 (Figure 2). Despite this, the final agreements in most cases represent an improvement compared with the proposals submitted by MS a year earlier. The EU Commission’s commitment to delivering its organic target, despite all the other policy challenges in 2022, needs to be acknowledged.

MS have also demonstrated an increased willingness to implement national OAPs, some for the first time, covering the period from 2023 to 2030 (Figure 3, green bars). As part of our research, we will be comparing the current/planned OAPs with previous plans (Figure 3, blue bars) to see how they have adapted to the current challenges. We will also be including an analysis of plans for organic aquaculture.

The report on this part of the project is due to be completed by mid-2023, and we hope to make it available soon after.

Author:
Nicolas Lampkin, Thünen Institute of Farm Economics, n.lampkin@thuenen.de, www.thuenen.de

Relevant Links:

• Lampkin & Sanders, 2022 https://orgprints.org/id/eprint/45159/1/lampkin-sanders-2022-Thuenen-Working-Paper200.pdf
• Willer et al., 2023 https://www.organic-world.net/yearbook/yearbook-2023.html
• CAP Strategic Plans https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/cap-my-country/cap-strategic-plans_en
• Farm to Fork Strategy https://food.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2020-05/f2f_action-plan_2020_strategy-info_en.pdf
• EU Organic Action Plan https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/farming/organic-farming/organic-action-plan_en#organicsintheeu

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or REA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them