BRUSSELS – At a conference on the impact of the European Union’s (EU) Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) on development, the United Nations Millennium Campaign today called on the EU to urgently reform its agriculture policy, which harms the poor and thwarts global efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
“An unreformed European agriculture policy will continue to hamper the EU’s and other donors’ efforts to eradicate poverty and will perpetuate human suffering,” said Eveline Herfkens, Founder of the UN Millennium Campaign. “It is now time for the EU to deliver on its development promises, reiterated in last week’s MDG Action Plan, and ensure that agricultural policies and subsidies benefit European rural development and the environment in such a way that does not hurt developing countries.”
The highly commendable role the EU plays as the world’s largest donor of development aid is being undermined by the effects of its own agricultural policy, which has become a burden for world food security and prevents poor countries from lifting themselves out of poverty.
“The biggest challenge the EU’s development aspirations are facing is the lack of policy coherence.” said Eckhard Deutscher, Chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC). “The trade, development, agriculture and environmental policies are simply out of sync with regard to developing countries.”
“Subsidies have led to agricultural overproduction, lowering world prices and prompting EU farmers to dump their products abroad,” said Teresa Cavero, Head of Research for Intermon Oxfam. “Even the last CAP reform in 2003 did not change that; in developing countries, cheap agricultural imports continue to reduce [the] competitiveness of local farmers, destroy productive capacities, deter agricultural investments and endanger the livelihoods of poor smallholding farmers.”
Consecutive reforms to make the CAP less harmful for developing countries have been insufficient. Subsidized agricultural products are still obstructing fair competition and poor countries’ access to the European market remains limited. The EU has kept certain tariffs and administrative hurdles prohibitively high, creating further obstacles for poor countries’ farmers.
“The CAP reform will be a reality check for the European Commission’s MDG Action Plan”, said Gabriele Zimmer, Member of the European Parliament. “As we will soon enter into the negotiations over the next EU budget, we need to fundamentally reform a subsidies regime that stands for waste at home and damage abroad,” the member of the development committee added.
