Presentation
Among the risks faced by the European agricultural system are those arising from strategic agricultural dependencies on third countries, which translate into market disruptions affecting the price or availability of agricultural commodities or inputs needed for production within the EU. The focus on strategic dependencies is justified on two grounds: the extreme vulnerability of the agricultural system to nitrogen imports (in the form of fertilizers and plant proteins), and the growing prominence and unpredictability of these risks in recent years. It is from this perspective that this Policy Brief sets out a series of recommendations for strengthening the risk and crisis management architecture in the MFF and the CAP 2028-2034, with a particular focus on strategic dependencies.
Key Messages
- Two main levers can help reduce European agriculture’s strategic dependencies while also strengthening the transformative resilience of farms more broadly: diversifying production at both farm and territorial level, and increasing circularity within agricultural systems.
- The MFF and the CAP 2028-2034 are appropriate legislative vehicles for incorporating measures to reduce these dependencies. IDDRI puts forward four recommendations to this end:
1. Require national and regional partnership plans to address vulnerabilities.
2. Improve agricultural risk and crisis management measures by broadening the range of risk management interventions eligible for CAP support, and by conditioning access to crisis aid on prior efforts by the Member State to prevent or mitigate the type of risks it faces.
3. Strengthen the resilience of farms and territories by using income support to promote territorial production diversity, and by explicitly including a goal of reducing input dependence within agri-environmental and climate actions.
4. Support the development of alternatives to imported synthetic fertilizers through the European Competitiveness Fund.
