The EU CAP : How coherent is it with the development of peasant agriculture in the South ?

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) has negative impacts on peasant agriculture in the South. For this reason, the CAP is in contradiction with commitments the EU has made regarding its policy coherency with development cooperation goals and regarding respect of human rights. This study, carried out at the request of the Agriculture and Food Commission (C2A) and the Luxembourg platform Meng Landwirtschaft, has helped identify various types of CAP impacts :

• The effects and impacts that exports of agricultural and food products whose production has benefited from CAP subsidies have on the markets of Southern countries. The study concentrates on the most emblematic examples of this issue: exports of milk powder and wheat to markets in West Africa.
• The effects and impacts of soy imports from Latin American countries, intended for animal feed.
• The global effects of the EU agricultural and food model with regard to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, bearing in mind that peasant agriculture in developing countries is particularly affected by climate change. Particular attention is paid to EU agricultural production for energy purposes.

Only in-depth reform of the CAP, combined with changes in other European policies, will enable the EU to fulfill its commitments.