How to improve sustainable competitiveness & innovation of EU agriculture

This study, commissioned by the European Parliament, reviewed the extent to which the current CAP and related EU policies promote sustainable competitiveness and innovation in agriculture. It also assessed the current legislative proposals for CAP reform.

Findings of the research suggest that the current policy does not realise its potential and that, although the reform package represents an improvement, particularly in its proposals for Pillar 2, more could usefully be done.

Recommendations were made to strengthen the balance of the package and improve proposals for each pillar of the CAP. Key ingredients include better advice, knowledge transfer, more use of locally tailored, strategically planned measure-packages, fuller sustainability-proofing and new incentives for innovation.

Professor Janet Dwyer, Professor Brian Ilbery and Katarina Kubinakova formed the CCRI team of researchers who worked with IEEP (Allan Buckwell, Henrietta Menadue and Kaley Hart), FS-UNEP CC (Karlheinz Knickel), INEA (Francesco Mantino) and the Univeristy of Ljublana (Emil Erjavec).

The research took place between January and May 2012.

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