WHAT IS THE CAP?
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the most important Community Policies. The English acronym is CAP (Common Agricultural Policy).
SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE CAP
The CAP employs about 34% of the EU budget and projected by the EC Treaty. The European Community has specific programs and economic resources to rise public awareness to its contents and targets, to consider farmers and interested parties in rural areas and to promote the European model of agriculture, as well as helping people to understand it better.
Agricultural policy has several objectives:
- It helps farmers to produce enough food quantity for Europe
- Ensures the safety (for example through traceability)
- Protects farmers from excessive price volatility and market crises
- Helps farmers invest in the modernization of their farms
- Supports the rural communities with a diversified economy
- Create and maintain jobs in the food industry
- Protects the environment and animal welfare.
Changes in agricultural policy
In recent decades, agricultural policy has changed a lot to help farmers face new challenges and in response to the changed attitude of public opinion:
The most recent reforms have dealt with:
- Greener agricultural practices
- Research and spread of knowledge
- A fairer system of support for farmers
- A stronger position for farmers in the food supply chain.
Other important aspects are:
- Help consumers make informed choices about food through the quality labels that the EU voluntarily applies to products.
These labels guarantee the geographical origin of the products or the use of traditional ingredients or traditional methods of processing (including the organic label), they also help the positioning of EU products in global competitive markets
- To Promote innovation in the production and processing (trough EU research project),increasing productivity and cut environmental impact
- Facilitate trade relations with developing nations by suspending subsidies to agricultural export to help the selling of EU products.
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