Today, during a discussion with the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Christophe Hansen, Farm Europe alerted the European Commission on the extremely alarming situation facing European agriculture, caught between geopolitical tensions that have caused production costs to skyrocket and the onslaught of climate change, which is highlighting the vulnerabilities of the European Union’s agricultural production systems, that have been focusing on regulatory, non-productive investments over recent decades. 

Farm Europe thanks Mr Christophe Hansen, European Commissioner for Agriculture, for his mobilisation and commitment but warns on the need to urgently move beyond traditional approaches in order to overcome short-term cash flow challenges faced by farmers, whilst preparing a long-term plan for growth and resilience in European agriculture. 

“EU agriculture is not merely facing temporary difficulties. It is being worn down by the geopolitical crisis, by severe drought over summer and the accumulation of non-productive investments aimed at compliance with regulations rather than adaptation to climate change”, alerted Yves Madre, President of Farm Europe. “The current growing seasons mark a tipping point. They cast a harsh light on Europe’s vulnerabilities in a world where agricultural production lies at the heart of geopolitical confrontation. Over recent decades, the European Union has adapted its agricultural policy without addressing the challenges facing agricultural production in a changing climate. It is paying the price for this today. Farm Europe therefore calls on the European Commissioner for Agriculture to launch a new initiative, a collaborative effort involving all stakeholders across the value chain to rebuild genuine European agricultural sovereignty, covering not only food security but also the challenges of a carbon-neutral economy”, he added. 

“Europe needs an ambitious recovery and investment plan for agriculture, built on fair incomes for farmers, strong production capacity and food sovereignty. Investing in agriculture means ensuring that high-quality food remains affordable for European citizens, rather than paving the way for alternatives disconnected from farming, such as laboratory-made products or ultra-formulated foods. This is how we strengthen European agriculture, both at home and on international markets,” said Ettore Prandini, President of Coldiretti and Chair of Farm Europe’s Strategic Committee.

“We cannot continue moving from one emergency to the next. Fertiliser costs, soaring fuel prices and drought demonstrate why we need a long-term strategy based on investment planning. For instance, enabling farmers to make full use of digestate would help reduce the cost of chemical fertilisers while preserving soil quality. This is just one example of the concrete action we need from the EU, and there are many others. Farm Europe and its members are bringing forward concrete solutions for the entire agricultural value chain. A stronger partnership with the European Commission will be key to putting agriculture back at the heart of Europe’s strategic choices,” concluded Prandini.

In recent years, European agriculture as a whole has fallen behind. Over the last two decades, the EU has lost almost 8 million hectares of cereal crops, 10% of its livestock and its vegetable growing area, 30% of its potato and sugar beet acreage, and 20% of its vineyard area. European agriculture is declining all while the Union needs agricultural production to meet the food and non-food needs of the European Union and its partners. 

However, prolonging this trend is not inevitable. Farm Europe is therefore calling for new and innovative ways of adding value to and financing European agriculture through short-term cash flow support, investment support measures, the opening up of new markets, including for bioenergy, and innovative sources of funding that better recognize the value and role of agriculture in building a carbon-neutral economy. For specific sectors, it is urgent to establish a high-level group on wheat, mirroring the positive work carried out for the livestock sector, and to accelerate the work on water, digitalisation, and risk and crisis management. All of this should aim at building a comprehensive resilience and investment plan for EU agriculture to support a growth strategy for EU agriculture, and bring back hope in European countrysides. 

In today’s State of the Union address, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, hid behind glossy rhetoric the bleak reality of the Union – in particular in the agriculture, food and energy sectors. “Words are good, deeds are better,” the President underlined, at a time when farmers are experiencing deeds that run in the opposite direction of words: far from reducing dependencies, the policy path driven by the Commission’s President is deepening them. Beyond words of love for farmers, the absence of concrete investment initiatives and of an emergency package to overcome a historic drought is worrying. Targeting 100 territories for water is good, but almost all farmers in Europe are now vulnerable with 70% of EU agriculture land in drought status this summer. 

Fixing leaks in Europe’s water systems is certainly necessary, but it is nowhere near the scale of the agricultural adaptation challenge and of investments needed. Promoting insurance and risk-management tools is indeed key, and Farm Europe has been advocating for it for more than a decade — but it will not replace a strong European budget and an autonomous Common Agricultural Policy. Overall, the policy path outlined by President von der Leyen in her annual address is presented as a strategy to shape an autonomous and sovereign Europe. In reality, it is delivering the opposite for the European agricultural sector.

So far, under the President von der Leyen leadership, the EU’s cereals surplus has been cut in half while 4 million hectares of cereals have disappeared. Wheat imports were multiplied by 2.4 between 2019 and 2023, and EU maize exports have collapsed by 48% since 2019. The livestock sector has lost more than 26 million heads since 2019. ; the EU’s meat trade surplus is down 26% since 2019, from 6.5 to 4.8 million tonnes. Europe has lost 1.37 million family farmers, a fifth of the total. Fertiliser costs have surged to historic levels: nitrogen prices in April 2026 stood 71% above their 2024 average, and EU fertiliser prices rose by a further 13.4% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2026 while farm output prices fell by 5.8% according to the last Eurostat sectorial brief. Unfair competition has deepened. Overall, EU agri-food imports are rising almost six times faster than exports. The protein dependency has widened to a record 62.3 million tonnes of net imports of oilseeds and feed materials, up from 58.9 million tonnes in 2019 — with soybean meal imports alone reaching 41.7 million tonnes, 21% above their 2019 level.

The potential strengths and investment capacity of European agriculture are on hold, including when it comes to the bioeconomy. On biofuels and biomethane, where farmers can contribute to shaping a carbon-neutral economy, the potential of agriculture remains frozen by ideological posturing and by a lack of understanding within the European Commission of the economic drivers and the reality of agricultural value chains capable of serving several markets at once. The result is a substitution of dependencies rather than their reduction.

On the global stage, the European Commission has multiplied trade agreements, mostly with agriculture as the banker of the negotiations — including through the unequal treaty with the United States, which commits the EU to 750 billion dollars of American energy purchases and 600 billion dollars of investment in exchange for a 15% tariff ceiling. This is a blow to the European project and to its capacity to demonstrate protection for its citizens and economic actors, farmers included.

Beyond marketing and posturing, farmers urgently need a strong Europe with a common approach — not the continuation of a policy path that leads to market fragmentation, internal competition within the single market, and an absence of level playing field under the pretext of flexibility and do it yourself approaches. This is all the more pressing as the Commission proposes to ring-fence only 300 billion euros for the next long-term budget — a cut of more than 20%, and the disappearance of the CAP as a budget line of its own undermining further visibility and predictability for European farmers and their value chains.

Therefore, Farm Europe calls for resetting the position of agriculture, and of agricultural policy, at its rightful place in the European project, so as to unlock its true potential as a lever for a genuinely sovereign Europe in many fields — because this sector is central not only to food security and health for European citizens, but also to strategic value chains including energy, chemistry, and all the key components of a carbon-neutral economy.

Farm Europe regrets today’s plenary vote on the extension of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism to downstream goods, which confirmed the deletion of Article 27a. Farm Europe counts on the Council and the Commission to defend this provision in the course of the interinstitutional negotiations, and beyond to urgently set a new decarbonation strategy for fertilisers that better reflect the specificities of agricultural value chains.

The European Parliament today confirmed the approach of ComENVI of deleting the emergency break that was proposed by the European Commission to allow suspending temporarily the carbon tax in case of Serious and unforeseen circumstances (Article 27a). The CBAM covers nitrogenous fertilisers, and farmers are the downstream users of those products. Unlike industrial operators, they receive no free allowances, they most often sell into price-taking markets and cannot pass costs downstream. Whatever happens to fertiliser prices lands at the farm gate, in a Union that remains heavily dependent on imports. Fertiliser prices are already at levels many farms cannot sustain.

The Commission’s original proposal recognises this risk proposing a conditional, evidence-based and reversible instrument, and not a weakening of the mechanism’s environmental integrity or its anti-circumvention architecture.

However, the European Parliament keeps a general provision under which the Commission may, “as appropriate”, redirect CBAM revenues to affected sectors. Where a policy structurally raises the price of an input that farmers cannot substitute and whose cost they cannot pass on, the revenue it generates should not bypass them. That principle now has to be made operative rather than left to the Commission’s discretionary power.

Eat Europe and Farm Europe welcome the recent inclusion of a specific provision on food in the proposed Public Procurement Act, just released. We have always advocated for public procurement as one of the most effective tools available to public authorities to drive healthier, higher-quality food systems. Public canteens — particularly in schools and hospitals — are not simply places where meals are served: they are powerful instruments for shaping dietary habits and protecting public health. We therefore welcome the fact that, although it was not included in the initial proposal, the Act now contains a specific provision addressing food. Failing to recognise the impact of public procurement rules in canteens on human health would have represented a major step backwards.

However, in its current form, the proposal does not yet go far enough in recognising the crucial role that public procurement can play in protecting and improving citizens’ health through access to quality food. 

In particular, the proposal relies on a voluntary approach when it comes to considering food quality criteria. Given the scale of the public procurement market and its direct impact on the diets of millions of citizens, we believe that certain quality considerations should be mandatory rather than simply encouraged.

“We welcome the strong focus on natural and seasonal food, as well as the recognition that the organisation of the food supply chain, including its local dimension, should be taken into account,” said Yves Madre, President of Farm Europe. “These are now fundamental criteria for European citizens when making food choices and should be reflected in greater coherence in public procurement, and in the future rules governing the common market organisation for agricultural products, as already recognised by the ongoing work of the European Parliament.”

Freshness and seasonality, organic and quality schemes, and the pattern that food makes along the chain, are important and welcome principles. Nevertheless, the concept of food quality remains too narrow: public procurement should also explicitly recognise the importance of prioritising short chains and minimally processed foods and should provide the possibility to restrict or prohibit the procurement of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), at least in particularly sensitive settings such as schools and hospitals.

“This is not an unrealistic ambition. Similar approaches are already beginning to emerge in different parts of the world,” said Luigi Scordamaglia, President of Eat Europe. “Within Europe, we have several examples in this direction: Rome, Paris and many others small and medium cities, demonstrating that public authorities can act decisively when health considerations are placed at the heart of food procurement” he concluded.

When it comes to UPFs, there is no longer time to wait. Initiatives promoted by Commissioner Várhelyi are moving in the right direction, but there remains too much reluctance to confront the issue and too much tendency to delay decisions on measures capable of addressing what is already one of the major food-related public health challenges facing our societies.

Eat Europe and Farm Europe therefore expect the European Parliament to begin, from the outset, a serious reflection on how to strengthen the proposal along these lines. This should include moving beyond a predominantly voluntary framework and ensuring that public procurement rules are designed first and foremost in the public interest.

“The debate should not be shaped by the interests of large food corporations whose primary objective is profit, but by the responsibility of policymakers to safeguard human health and ensure that public money contributes to healthier food systems, in particular providing effective and mandatory tools to contrast the spread of UPFs especially when it comes to rules on how to spend public money” said Luigi Scordamaglia, President of Eat Europe.

The map of the 2026 climate impacts on EU agricultural systems almost entirely overlaps with the long-term trends observed in recent years. 2026 is a year of climate extremes – excess water, extreme temperatures, and drought affecting 70% of agricultural land within the same year. The European Union is not being caught by surprise by this new reality, but it is facing it in a state of almost total unpreparedness, due to a lack of investment and anticipation of these phenomena affecting agricultural systems already under very severe pressure.

This is the main finding highlighted by the second part of the study entitled: “An agricultural water crisis that calls for a European plan to solve the puzzle of regional challenges”, presented on 8 September at the European Parliament, during an event held under the patronage of Ms Maria Carmen Crespo, Member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture.

On this occasion, alongside Ms Letizia Moratti, Member of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Ms Gaëlle Marion, Head of Unit “Environmental Sustainability” at the European Commission, Ms Céline Duroc, Director of AGPM and CEPM, Mr Adriano Battilani, Secretary-General of Irrigants d’Europe, Ms Claudia Albani, representative of Coldiretti, and Mr José Maria Castilla, Director for Europe at ASAJA, Luc Vernet, Secretary-General of Farm Europe, stressed:

“Farmers cannot face the water challenge alone. They are waiting for a strong signal from European leaders, and in particular from the President of the European Commission in her State of the Union address, regarding the measures envisaged both in the short and long term to support agriculture. 80% of agricultural losses in recent years have been caused by climate-related events. Water management in agriculture is the first risk-management lever, yet it has been significantly underinvested in over recent years. This issue does not concern farmers alone: agricultural soils are at the heart of natural cycles. They are the EU’s largest water infrastructure. Their good health determines not only our food supply, but also our ability to regulate temperatures, limit flooding, recharge groundwater, and store carbon. Securing farmers’ access to water is not a corporatist demand; it is a societal issue and a matter of safeguarding the water cycle.”

Against this backdrop, Farm Europe is calling on the European Commission to build a water strategy hand in hand with the agricultural sector, bringing together climate and agronomic expertise to develop relevant solutions tailored to the challenges of each territory. The second part of the study, which will be followed by work focused on solutions, combines three levels of analysis: an analysis of agricultural systems, an analysis of the sensitivity of agricultural ecosystems to water needs, and an assessment of hydro-climatic resources, taking into account their ongoing evolution. This analysis makes it possible to develop indicators that are fundamental to shaping the future.

It is becoming clear that no region is now beyond the reach of the water challenge: the entire European Union is concerned. But there is neither a single challenge nor a single solution: European cooperation is needed to define an adaptation pathway focused on the capacity to produce in a context of increasingly constrained water availability.

The adaptation levers exist: carbon farming, precision agriculture; investment in storage, irrigation, water reuse and desalination infrastructure; efforts to reduce the sensitivity of agricultural systems through the genetic adaptation of crops (particularly through NGTs) and adaptation of crop rotations where necessary.

To achieve this, short-, medium- and long-term financing tools must be made available, with investment in water availability for agriculture treated as a strategic investment within the current and future EU budget, including the Competitiveness Fund and the Common Agricultural Policy.

“The delay accumulated over the past 20 years means that the European Union must manage the emergency through short-term measures to ensure the continuity of production, while preparing for the future in order to move beyond a situation of permanent crisis,” concludes Luc Vernet. “This calls for putting agriculture back at the heart of the European project, as a strategic endeavour that benefits European society as a whole.”

Link to the study:

Farm Europe presents new study on water resilience at the European Parliament on 8 September

Following another summer of severe drought, extreme heat and growing pressure on water resources, Farm Europe is repeatedly calling for a shift from crisis management to prevention, resilience and investment to strengthen the competitiveness of European agriculture. And this can be achieved with a political will and target amendments to the CAP set of proposals and other legislative dossiers, such as the European Competitiveness Fund.

Farm Europe will present its new in-depth study on water at the European Parliament on 8 September at 17:30, at an event hosted by MEP Carmen Crespo (Spain, EPP).

The study examines the water situation across the EU and its regional dimension, and start reflecting on setting out recommendations to address the growing challenges facing European farming.

“Europe cannot afford to wait for the next crisis. The time has come not only to manage the consequences of water scarcity but also to prevent them. Europe needs a long-term strategy based on prevention, resilience and investment,” says Luc Vernet, Secretary General of Farm Europe.

Farm Europe calls in particular for the future European Competitiveness Fund to support strategic investments in water resilience, including water-storage infrastructure, digital technologies to improve water efficiency and measures to protect water quality.

The study also highlights the contribution of agriculture, livestock farming and the wider bioeconomy to building more resilient European territories.

The presentation will be followed by a roundtable with MEPs, EU institutions, agricultural stakeholders, experts and Farm Europe members and partners, focusing on how water management can help secure the future competitiveness and resilience of European farming.

Europe’s water crisis is here. The time to act is now.

The event takes place on Tuesday, 8 September 2026, from 17:30 to 19:00 at the European Parliament in Brussels.

Registration for stakeholders and media: https://forms.gle/4LukUhDpS25frGvv7

Farm Europe welcomes the adoption by the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of targeted amendments to simplify the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED), in particular the clarification related to cattle that should not be included in the scope of this regulation, neither be assessed by the European Commission in this context, and the principle of proportionality by reverting to fixed capacity thresholds for other livestock installations.

The approach proposed by ComAGRI would provide clarity for the ruminant sector and send a clear signal : cattle should not be included in the IED, and this option shall not be assessed by the European Commission. In addition, through fixed capacity standards rather than complex livestock unit calculations, reducing compliance burden for operators while maintaining the highest environmental standards globally.  Fixed capacity thresholds for pigs and poultry return to the original framework, restoring the regulatory clarity and certainty that producers need. 

An extended timeline for uniform operating conditions (September 2027 rather than 2026) would provide competent authorities and the sector adequate time for implementation, including Commission impact assessment of proposed measures.

The amendments balance administrative simplification with environmental effectiveness as they remove redundant complexity without reducing protection for soil, water, and air.

The only aspect we regret is the adoption of Compromise 2 on the aggregation rule, as it does not fully reflect the objective of simplification and risks introducing additional costs and administrative burdens, particularly for smaller companies. In our view, it would be preferable to delete the aggregation requirement altogether.

Farm Europe thanks to rapporteur Christine Singer for her work on the file, and all MEPs involved and encourages the Environment Committee and the European Parliament to align with the AGRI position during the legislative process. Maintaining consistency is essential for coherent climate and circular economy policy.

Eat Europe and Farm Europe warmly welcome the entry into force, as of 3 September, of the European Commission’s decision excluding Brazil from the list of Countries authorised to export products of animal origin to the European Union unless compliance with European rules on the use of antimicrobials can be demonstrated.

This is an important day and a concrete step forward in the efforts that Eat Europe, Farm Europe and their members have been pursuing for a long time to achieve true reciprocity. The principle is simple and fundamental: there cannot be different standards depending on whether a product is produced within the European Union or imported from a third country. European rules on food safety and the use of antimicrobials must be consistently applied and enforced throughout the entire supply chain.

But this achievement must translate into the effective enforcement of the rules.

Recent information made public by the Brazilian authorities and representatives of the livestock sector regarding the new certification protocol intended to ensure compliance with EU requirements on the use of antimicrobials raises concerns that cannot be ignored. 

According to information provided by the Brazilian authorities and industry representatives themselves, the certification system is still at an early stage, and no farms have yet been certified under the new protocol. This indicates that the practical implementation of the system and the verification of effective compliance are still being established.

The European Union’s standards concerning the prohibition of certain antimicrobials in animals intended for export are not new. These requirements have been applicable since 2023 and exporting countries have had sufficient time to adapt. Compliance with EU legislation cannot depend solely on future commitments or certification systems that have yet to demonstrate their effectiveness in practice.

For this reason, Farm Europe and Eat Europe call on the European Commission to maintain a strict and precautionary approach, strengthening official controls on imports of beef from Brazil. The competent Brazilian authorities must provide robust, verifiable and reliable guarantees that all products exported to the European Union fully comply with European requirements.

“The Brazilian experience reaffirms the importance of strengthening controls, certifications, and verification procedures for the production systems of exporting countries, rather than relying solely on checks at the border,” said Luigi Scordamaglia, President of Eat Europe. “The focus must shift from ex-post controls to ensuring, throughout the entire supply chain, production conditions equivalent to those applied in Europe.”

The protection of European consumers must remain an absolute priority. At the same time, it is essential to protect European operators who comply with stringent standards every day and bear the costs associated with implementing EU rules. And this is true not only as regards compliance with our veterinary legislation, but this must also apply to the requirements concerning traceability and the ban on imports of Brazilian products derived from GMOs that are not authorised in the European Union.

“The credibility of the European food safety system depends on the ability to apply the same rules to everyone”, added Yves Madre, President of Farm Europe. “Any disparity in the enforcement of standards would risk undermining consumer confidence, placing compliant European producers at a disadvantage and weakening the very principle of reciprocity. It is a matter not only of fairness but of political credibility as well. Members of the European Parliament are crystal clear with a very large majority of Comagri members tabling amendments to single CMO reform requiring imported products to meet EU production standards“. 

3 September is therefore an important day: not an end point, but a step forward in building true reciprocity. 

As negotiations on the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) enter a decisive phase, Farm Europe is launching its CAP 2028–2034 Budget Simulator: an interactive online tool that allows decision makers, analysts and farmers alike to model the financial architecture of the future CAP and to measure, in real time and at different scales, the concrete consequences of the choices currently on the table at EU, national and farm level.

In its July 2025 proposal, the European Commission (EC) set out to merge the budgets of the main European policies, including the CAP, into a single National and Regional Partnership (NRP) Fund, leaving Member States far greater freedom to arbitrate the allocation of funds previously ringfenced for a given policy. Behind the headline figures, the real impact of such a reform on farmers, on Member States and on Europe’s food sovereignty depends on a dense web of technical parameters. The Budget Simulator was built to make that complexity legible by all.

The tool lets the user on one hand observe in fixed scenarios, the impact of an unamended CAP regulation’s proposal, and on the other hand in a user driven scenario, set the macro parameters of the future CAP, the ring-fenced CAP envelope, the Member State co-financing commitment, as well as possible future parameters such as the potential flexibility available for frontloading, and the rural development target, and then watch these choices cascade to all 27 Member States according to the allocation keys and Member States’ individual priorities. 

From there, the user can drill into any Member State to re-allocate EU funds across the different NRP interventions of the new Single CAP Fund Regulation, adjust national co-financing rates, and observe the effect at Member state level and on both EU and Total Public Expenditure, while keeping in consideration indicators such as environmental spending floors and minimum co-financing thresholds.

Every projection is compared against the 2021–2027 CAP Strategic Plan baseline, so the variation induced by each scenario is immediately visible as we at Farm Europe have considered said baselines to project the allocations each Member State’s CAP Strategic Plan would consist of. 

Beyond the budgetary tables, the simulator translates figures into real-world effects: a farm-level impact view estimates income effects by country, farm type and economic size; a choropleth map of Europe compares the variation across Member States; and an intervention-mapping table traces how each current CAP measure maps onto the new framework. Two ready-made scenarios – the Commission’s July 2025 proposal, an amended Commission scenario (based partially on the letter of EC Commission president U. Von der Leyen) – and a fully manual mode provide immediate reference points for the negotiation as well as a wide range of possibilities.

The simulator is grounded entirely in official sources: the 2021–2027 CAP Strategic Plans Regulation, the Commission’s July 2025 legislative proposals for the Single CAP Fund and the NRP Fund, the Performance Framework Regulation and its environmental tracking coefficients, and Member States’ approved CSP financial tables. Farm Europe developed this tool in the conviction that a transparent, evidence-based analysis is the best guarantee of a strong, autonomous and properly funded Common Agricultural Policy.

Link to the Budget Simulator:
https://www.farm-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/CAP_simulator_PUBLIC_final.html

One week after releasing the Delegated Act of the EU Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming framework, the European Commission has, today, presented its Emissions Trading System revision, committing only to assess — in a 2034 review — the possibility of selling carbon farming credits on the ETS market and allowing Member States to mobilise ETS revenues to support investments to reduce agricultural emissions linked to smart fertilisation, including farmers’ uptake of bio-based, organic and circular fertilisers.

Farm Europe and Eat Europe assess positively those initial steps, but regret the move to re-integrate international carbon credits, which risk diverting demand away from domestic solutions and investment in Europe, and the further delayed recognition of carbon farming credits. We also regret that the ETS revision does not propose to clearly suspend the application of the ETS and CBAM to fertilizers — which would shift the incentive away from penalising production and towards stimulating demand for low-carbon fertilisers. At the very least, the prolongation of free allowances should be paired with a revised CBAM trajectory and with the possibility to sell carbon farming credits into the ETS.

Farm Europe and Eat Europe  urge both the Commission and the co-legislators not to further postpone the possibility to connect Carbon Farming CRCF credits to the ETS, creating a true business model for emission reduction in agriculture, in Europe. Although the proposal anticipates a review in 2034 and subsequent consideration of the inclusion of credits from carbon farming, carbon farming needs a market now. Agriculture is a building block of the defossilisation of a large part of the EU economy, well beyond the food market. The agricultural sector requires large scale investments and policy coherence to be in a position to provide circular, biogenic carbon, essential to lay down the foundation of a competitive carbon neutral economy.

“The adoption of the carbon farming methodologies last week associated with the commitment from the Commission to examine direct links between CRCF and ETS are encouraging developments in the effort to create a true leverage for emission reduction in agriculture”, reacted Luc Vernet, Secretary General of Farm Europe, adding, “now is the time to move from concepts to concrete decisions. Farmers can’t wait 2034 to be fairly rewarded for their emission reduction efforts”.

As for free allocation, we welcome the proposal to slow the reduction of free allowances for CBAM-covered sectors and to extend the phase-out of free allowances until 2038. However, this extension must necessarily be accompanied by a revision of the trajectory of the CBAM for fertilisers.

“The two mechanisms are intrinsically linked and should operate in a coordinated manner. Extending free allocation while maintaining the CBAM for fertilisers would result in divergences between two instruments designed to address the same carbon leakage risk, undermining the coherence and effectiveness of the EU carbon pricing framework,” said Luigi Scordamaglia, President of Eat Europe.

Voluntary carbon markets currently do not offer real and predictable opportunities to allow farmers to trigger investments in emission reduction and carbon removals, including in low carbon fertilisers. The ETS revision is a unique opportunity to close this gap. It sets out how domestic permanent carbon removals could be accounted for within the trading system to help address residual emissions in hard-to-abate sectors. The European Commission will examine how carbon farming and nature-based carbon sequestration units could in future qualify as permanent removals — of which, at this stage, only BioCCS and DACCS are included in the ETS. 

In addition, the Commission proposes to channel part of ETS revenues to investments to reduce agricultural emissions linked to more efficient use of fertilisers and to support farmers in the uptake of bio-based, organic and circular fertilisers. The modernisation fund will also support investments in lead markets for the production of affordable low-carbon and bio-based fertilisers.