Towards a New Common Agricultural Policy

Slow Food, through its president, Carlo Petrini, has entered into an active dialog with the European Commission, which is working to draw up a new Common Agricultural Policy. The revised CAP will come into force on January 1, 2014.

In September, before the first legislative proposals were published, Petrini wrote a letter to the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Dacian Cioloş. It was attached to a position document containing the key changes that Slow Food believes should be made to the current CAP. Petrini specifically asked the Commission to support small-scale producers, to correct the current imbalance in funding towards industrial agriculture, to help young farmers and to encourage greener agriculture through direct incentives.

Petrini and Cioloş met at the 2010 Salone del Gusto/Terra Madre and since then they have engaged in a fruitful dialog. We hope that this exchange is just the start of a journey towards more sustainable food production. Awareness must be raised among citizens about this issue, so that they understand what is at stake: not abstract regulations, but the very survival of thousands of farmers around the continent.

This coming year will be crucial to the debate, and Slow Food will continue the mobilization already started in 2011 in all 27 member countries, raising awareness among all the actors involved, whether institutions, youth, cooks, academics, producers or consumers.

Food production and consumption concern everyone, and given the high pressure from lobbies and corporations, Slow Food and other organizations concerned about sustainability must attempt to provide a counterbalance. The objective is to ensure that food polices are given the attention they deserve on European government agendas. These policies have the power to decide the lives of millions of citizens.

Find out more:
Read Slow Food’s response to the first package of reform proposals for the CAP.

www.slowfood.com/sloweurope