The 400-page study, contracted by the European Commission, examines the concept of public goods applied to agriculture and argues in favour of their delivery by farmers via public funding.
The study, carried out by the Institute for European Environmental Policy, a think-tank, comes as the debate about the future direction of the CAP post-2013 intensifies. The Commission said the conclusions do not necessarily reflect its own opinion.
The report focuses on ten environmental public goods, of which the authors say there is evidence of "undersupply", and which have important interaction with agriculture: agricultural landscapes, farmland biodiversity, water quality, water availability, soil functionality, carbon storage and climate stability, greenhouse gas emissions, air quality and resilience to fire and flooding.
The authors stress that the provision of public goods varies from farm to farm, and between regions and climatic zones. Moreover, while some goods are cross-border in character, others can be defined as local or regional.
Current CAP failing to deliver
The study notes that the CAP's instruments have delivered some improvements in air quality, helped to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and improved soil quality in some regions. However, it says the provision of green public goods has remained "unsatisfactory" as a result of insufficient funding for rural development measures with environmental objectives.
According to the report, direct CAP payments currently contribute to "enhancing the economic viability of farming and serve as a foundation for more targeted measures" to scale up provision of public goods. Therefore, the authors argue in favour of linking those payments to a robust regulatory baseline and cross-compliance measures, saying these are "essential" to address environmental issues in the countryside.
Existing CAP cross-compliance measures already require farmers to meet certain standards related to the environment, food safety, animal health and welfare before they are entitled to receive direct payments from the EU.
"Regulatory demands are scheduled to increase over time," the report notes, highlighting the implementation of the Water Framework Directive in future agricultural policy as an example (EurActiv 15/07/08).
Promoting rural development
In December 2009, a similar report by the RISE Foundation, a rural conservation group supported by the European Landowners' Organisation (ELO), called for stronger and better targeted EU rural development policy (EurActiv 2/12/09) to encourage farmers to manage the land better "in a regulated framework".
According to the report, payments for rural public services could come from farmers, consumers and taxpayers through the EU budget or national budgets, but services would be delivered using CAP measures.
The report argued that environmental services could also be delivered by environmental markets such as cap-and-trade or floor-and-trade schemes, offsets and contracts for services.
