Brussels, Sep 5 (IANS): The European Commission will present a roadmap for the future of the European Union's agriculture within the first 100 days of the next mandate, incumbent and future Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
The next Commission is due to be formed in the coming months following the June European election, Xinhua news agency reported.
Von der Leyen made the remarks while receiving the final report of the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture, a forum that was launched in January to shape a shared vision for EU farming.
"There is hardly a sector more important to our continent than agriculture. It is ... vital to our health. It is strategic to our economy and our self-sufficiency," von der Leyen told a news conference on Wednesday.
"My team and I will ... carefully study these recommendations in the report. They will feed into a vision for agriculture and food. And I will present this roadmap within the first 100 days of the next mandate," she added.
The report offers recommendations which include adaptation of the EU's common agricultural policy towards more sustainable and competitive food systems, advocate support and promotion of sustainable farming practices, and outline the need to strengthen risk management tools in farming.
It also stresses the importance of generational renewal and gender equality in farming and the need to protect workers in the sector, and states that access to knowledge and skills must be facilitated.
The reference is to the contested direct payments to farmers per hectare which makes up nearly 75 per cent of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and, without a capping, are alleged to allow large farms to benefit excessively from EU subsidies.
"The shared opinion of the members of the strategic dialogue is very clear: Public money is not to be spent to those who do not need it," said Professor Peter Strohschneider, chair of the reflection group.
"The recommendation is to make the CAP fit for purpose," he told Euronews in an interview, putting the focus on enabling lively rural areas but also rewarding sustainable agricultural practices.
One of the report's most ambitious proposals is the creation of an Agri-food Just Transition Fund. This one-off investment support, separate from the CAP budget, would provide loans or grants to support farmers in transitioning to more sustainable practices.
The report also addressed mandatory environmental practices tied to EU subsidies, initially part of the CAP's green architecture but recently amended after widespread farmers' protests.