ABSTRACT
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) lays down a system of agricultural subsidies and other programmes within the European Union. Its roots date back to the late 1950s and early 1960s when the founding members of the European Community had to consider the backbone of what was to become a harmonized set of rules aimed at providing guaranteed prices for farmers and shared funding amongst member countries. Since then, the CAP has often been criticized for its environmental impact. Whilst agriculture, because of its large proportion of land use (41 per cent in the European Union) plays a decisive role for the state of the environment and the implementation of biodiversity goals in Europe, the CAP is still perceived by many as not green enough to bolster sustainable farming within the EU. Traditionally, environmental NGOs chastised the CAP for its one-sided focus on rising production. The CAP’s failure to provide sufficient incentives for more sustainable ways of farming is strikingly illustrated by the sharp fall of the farmland bird population which, between 1980 and 2009, declined by half, from 600 million to 300 million. It is widely known that the indiscriminate use of fertilizers and pesticides, along with the industrialization of farming, are amongst the main causes of this worrisome trend.
