George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, UK), ALDE Spokesman on Agriculture and author of Parliament's report on reforming the Common Agricultural Policy, has called for decisive reform and realignment of the CAP after 2013 to address the challenges of the 21st century. He identifies the key challenge as a near doubling of food demand by 2050 against a backdrop of less land, less water and major cuts in energy use because of climate change.

"For the first time, direct support payments to farmers across Europe would be linked to efforts to reduce harmful emissions. A reformed and renewed CAP will treat farmers as part of the solution to climate change, not part of the problem.”

The report also sets out a further greening of the CAP by encouraging the development of small scale renewables.It promotes further carbon sequestration and sets a goal for the majority of European farm land to be covered by agri-environmental schemes.

“By encouraging green growth, driving innovation and the use of new technology the CAP can play a key role in meeting challenges identified in EU 2020 strategy.

The report also puts fairness at the heart of the reforms by calling on the EU to honour its commitment to give new member states a comparable level of funding for direct payments as well as being fair to individual farmers by ending historic based payments by 2020.

“Receiving payments based on how you farmed at the beginning of the century should not dictate how payments are received in the years ahead."

“Historic payments are unjustified, unfair and should come to an end by 2020".

For more information, please contact:

Neil Corlett: +33-3-88 17 41 67 or +32-478-78 22 84
e-mail: neil.corlett@europarl.europa.eu
Yannick Laude: +33-3-88 17 27 76 or +32-495-22 78 37