AOSTA, Italy — The 380,000 wheels of Fontina PDO cheese matured each year are tiny in number compared to the millions churned out by more famous rivals — but that doesn’t make the creamy cheese any less important to producers in Valle d’Aosta, a region nestled in the Italian Alps.  Fontina’s protected designation of origin (PDO) provides consumers at home and abroad a “guarantee of quality and of a short supply chain,” explained Stéphanie Cuaz, of the consortium responsible for protecting the cheese from cheap copycats, as she navigated a hairpin turn on the way to a mountain pasture. With fewer than a hundred cows, a handful of farm hands and a small house where milk is transformed into cheese, the pasture at the end of the winding road feels far away from global trade tussles its flagship product is embroiled in. The EU’s scheme to protect the names of local delicacies from replicas produced elsewhere has proved controversial in international trade negotiations. For instance, in 2023, free trade talks with Australia were swamped by complaints from its cheese producers railing against EU demands that they refrain from using household names like “Mozzarella di Bufala Campana” and “Feta.”  Fontina was caught in the crossfire, having been included in the list of names the EU wants protected Down Under. Fontina DOP Alpeggio is a variant of the cheese produced during the summer months using milk from cows grazing in alpine pastures up to 2,700 meters above sea level | Lucia Mackenzie/POLITICO. No such protections exist in the U.S., where in the state of Wisconsin alone, there are a dozen “fontina” producers, one of which won bronze at the World Cheese Awards in 2022.  Europe’s small-time food producers find themselves in a bind: their protected status is vital for promoting their traditional products abroad, but charges of protectionism have soured some trade negotiations. Nonetheless, many of the bloc’s trading partners clearly see the benefits of the system, baking in similar protections for their own products into trade deals. PROTECTION VS PROTECTIONISM Fontina cheese can only be labeled as such if several strict criteria are met. Cows of certain breeds need to be fed with hay of a certain caliber and, crucially, every step of the cheesemaking process must take place within the region’s borders.   For Cuaz, who grew up on a dairy farm in Doues, a small town of around 500 people perched on the valley side, the protection of the Fontina name is vital to keep farming alive and sufficiently paid in the region. Tucked up against the French and Swiss borders, Valle d’Aosta is Italy’s least populated region, home to just over 120,000 inhabitants speaking a mixture of Italian, French and the local Valdôtain dialect. Fontina — which with its distinctive nutty flavor can be enjoyed on a charcuterie board, in a fondue, or encased in a veal chop — is one of over 3,600 foods, wines, and spirits registered under the EU’s geographical indications (GI) system. This protects the names of products that are uniquely linked to a specific region. The idea is to make them easier to promote and keep small producers competitive. In the EU alone, GI products bring in €75 billion in annual revenue and command a price that’s 2.23 times higher than those without the status, the bloc’s Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen proclaimed earlier this year. He called the scheme a “true EU success story.” The GI system is predominantly used in gastronomic powerhouses like Italy and France, and Hansen hopes to promote uptake in the eastern half of the bloc.  Italy has the most geographical indications in the world, accounting for €20 billion in turnover, the country’s Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida pointed out, describing the system as an “extraordinary value multiplier.” ‘NOTHING MORE THAN A TRADE BARRIER’ While several trading partners apparently share the enthusiasm of Hansen and Lollobrigida  — the EU’s trade agreements with countries from South Korea to Central America and Canada include protections for selected GIs — others view the protections as, well, protectionist. The U.S. has long been the system’s most vocal critic, with the Trade Representative’s annual report on intellectual property protection calling it out as “highly concerning” and “harmful.” Washington argues that the rules undermine existing trademarks and that product names like “fontina,” “parmesan” and “feta” are common and shouldn’t be reserved for use by certain regions. That reflects the U.S. dairy industry’s resentment towards Europe’s GIs: Krysta Harden, U.S. Dairy Export Council president, argued they are “nothing more than a trade barrier dressed up as intellectual property protection.” Meanwhile, the National Milk Producers’ Federation blames the scheme, at least in part, for the U.S. agri-food trade deficit.  American opposition to the system doesn’t stop at its own trade relationship with the EU. The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office also accused the EU of pressuring trading partners to block certain imports and vowed to combat the bloc’s “aggressive promotion of its exclusionary GI policies.” DOUBLING DOWN Unfazed by the criticism, Hansen continues to tout geographical indications as vital in the EU’s ongoing trade negotiations with other countries.  The EU’s long-awaited trade accord with the Latin American Mercosur bloc is heading toward ratification and includes GI protections for both sides. Speaking in Brazil last month, Hansen went out of his way to praise his hosts for protecting canastra, a highland cheese, and cachaça, a sugarcane liquor, against imitations.  Fifty-eight of the GIs protected under the agreement are Italian, Lollobrigida told POLITICO. This protects Italy’s reputation for high-quality food, he said, and ensures “that Mercosur citizens receive top-quality products.” The EU recently concluded a deal with Indonesia which will protect more than 200 EU products, and a geographical indication agreement is actively being discussed in talks on a free-trade deal with India that both sides hope to wrap up this year. As negotiations with Australia pick up once again, the issue of GI cheeses is expected to return to the spotlight. The U.S. pushback on GIs in other countries has fallen on deaf ears, argued John Clarke, the EU’s former lead agriculture negotiator. He criticized detractors for peddling “specious arguments which bear no relationship to intellectual property rights.” American claims that some terms are universally generic are “illegitimate” and ultimately “very unsuccessful,” in Clarke’s view. “They came too late to the party,” he said, “and their arguments were not very convincing from a legal point of view.” CULTURE AND COMMERCE  The uptake of GIs in other countries demonstrates the additional value the schemes can bring for rural communities and cultural heritage, Clarke posited.  In Valle d’Aosta, the GI system “keeps people and maybe also young farmers linked to this region,” argued Cuaz, adding that young people leaving rural areas in favor of urban centers is a real problem for her region. From tournaments to find the “Queen” of the herd that are a highlight of summer weekends to the “Désarpa” parade marking the end of the season as cows return to the valley from their Alpine pastures, Fontina cheese production keeps traditions alive in the tiny region every year. The dairy industry even plays a role in making use of abandoned copper mines, where thousands of cheese wheels mature annually. Thousands of cheese wheels are matured the Valpelline warehouse, built in the tunnels of a former copper mine. | Lucia Mackenzie/POLITICO. Supporters of the GI scheme also point to the food and wine tourism opportunities it offers. Les Cretes vineyard, winery and tasting room represent one such success story.  The flavors imbued into traditional and native grape varieties by the soil of the Valle d’Aosta’s high-altitude vineyards justify its inclusion as a geographically protected product, explained Monique Salerno, who has worked for the family business for 15 years and is in charge of tastings and events. The premium price on the local wines is vital to keep the producers competitive, given that the steep vines need to be picked by hand, she added. The business expanded in 2017, building a tasting room to draw tourists to Aymavilles, the town with a population of just over 2,000 that houses much of the vineyard. TARIFF TROUBLE While American critics have, in Clarke’s view, “lost the war on terroir,” Europe’s small-time food producers are not immune to the rollercoaster of tit-for-tat tariffs that have dominated recent EU-U.S. trade negotiations.  Like the vast majority of European products heading to the U.S., cheese is subject to a 15 percent blanket tariff. In the meantime, however, organizational mishaps led to some temporary doubling of tariffs on Italian cheeses, angering major producers.  The whole saga has caused uncertainty, said Ermes Fichet, administrative manager of the Milk and Fontina Producers’ Cooperative.  The Les Cretes vineyard on the slopes surrounding Aymavilles. | Lucia Mackenzie/POLITICO The U.S. is Fontina’s largest overseas market, accounting for around 60 percent of direct exports. However, producers aren’t fearing for their livelihoods, yet, as most Fontina cheese isn’t exported at all: an estimated 95 percent of wheels are sent to distributors in Italy. Rather, the impact of U.S. trade policy is long term. The American market would in theory be able to absorb all of Fontina’s production, Fichet explains, but the sale of similar cheeses at lower prices there makes it difficult to expand market share.  According to figures released by the USDA’s statistics service, over 5.1 million kilos of “fontina” cheese was produced in Wisconsin alone in 2024. That comes out to a higher volume than the 3.1 million kilos of GI-certified Fontina originating in Valle d’Aosta annually.  And looking elsewhere isn’t an easy option for the small-time cheese makers, even if future trade agreements include GI recognition. While markets in countries like Saudi Arabia are growing, they would never close the gap left by U.S. producers if trade ties worsen, said Fichet.  Responding to the foreign detractors, he highlighted the benefits from the scheme at home. Fontina DOP “allows us to maintain the agricultural reality of certain places … it’s an extra reason to try to help those who are committed to carrying on with a product that is, let’s say, the little flower of the Valle d’Aosta.”

Europe’s draft gene-editing law may only survive thanks to the far right. The new law would determine whether Europe opens the door to a new generation of gene-edited plants, an innovation boon worth trillions of euros. But after months of hours-long meetings, fraying tempers and déjà-vu debates, the small circle of officials trying to hammer out the legislation know they’ve hit a wall. Now, inside the negotiation rooms, a taboo is starting to look like a safety valve. Two right-wing MEPs — allies of Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini — look ready to break the impasse. “The left is blocking negotiations,” said Silvia Sardone, a rising star in Italy’s far-right Lega party. “Their demands are impossible to meet.” Though they would never put it so bluntly, other negotiators on the New Genomic Techniques file agree with her. Week in, week out, European Commission officials, national diplomats and Parliament representatives lean over annotated printouts that, by now, feel more familiar than their own phones. Supporters say the technology could help develop crops that cope with drought and cut chemical use. Critics fear it would strengthen big seed companies through patents and squeeze out smaller breeders. But whenever talks resume, they fall apart immediately — not over objections from governments or the Commission, but because the Parliament’s own voices are pulling in opposite directions.  French Socialist Christophe Clergeau, backed by Greens and the The Left, is holding the line on stronger protections for small companies, consumers and the environment. Swedish conservative Jessica Polfjärd, playing the role of the Parliament’s broker, is struggling to keep her camp together. Meanwhile, two members of the group — previously ignored — are quietly indicating they’re ready to settle. It’s in that vacuum that a once-taboo idea has crept into the conversation: What if the far right is now the only way to get this done? THE NEW ARITHMETIC Just a few months ago, that would have been dismissed outright. But after last week’s raucous vote in the Parliament chamber — when the center right openly teamed up with far-right groups to bulldoze a deregulation package through a booing hemicycle — it no longer sounds so outlandish. The Commission says it cannot concede more changes. Governments say they have already gone as far as they can. The text bounces back to the table, unchanged. French Socialist Christophe Clergeau, backed by Greens and the The Left, is holding the line on stronger protections for small companies, consumers and the environment. | Fred Marvaux/European Parliament “We are circling the same paragraphs every week,” said one diplomat, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. That’s where two unlikely figures hover at the edge of the impasse. One is Pietro Fiocchi, an Italian heir to a historic ammunition dynasty, a hunting evangelist who addresses “dear hunters and fishermen friends” in Facebook videos, and a man known for once appearing on a campaign poster pointing a gun. The other is Sardone, a combative hardliner who rails against “green follies,” edible insects and electric cars. She has made headlines for social media posts warning of “Islamization,” alleging ties between far-left activists and Islamic extremists, and attacking the Romani community. Neither is anyone’s idea of a biotech champion. But both have indicated they’re willing to accept the slimmed-down deal governments say is the only realistic option. And the pair’s readiness has changed the mood. The threat of the far right stepping in could force Clergeau to accept a weaker compromise — a centrist move which is in vogue in the Parliament — according to a Parliament official close to the talks. This is only to avoid an even weaker, far-right-backed deal being pushed through without him, the official added. Swedish conservative Jessica Polfjärd, playing the role of the Parliament’s broker, is struggling to keep her camp together. | Fred Marvaux/European Parliament Clergeau flatly rejected that scenario, saying the talks hadn’t reached that point and that nothing new had emerged to warrant further comment. He previously said he is pressing for proof that new genomic techniques actually deliver benefits, not just promises on paper. The deal, he argued, must not accelerate the concentration of the seed market in the hands of a few multinational companies, at the expense of smaller breeders and farmers. Polfjärd declined to comment for this story, pointing to the sensitivity of the ongoing talks. Last year, MEPs overwhelmingly backed a ban on patents for gene-edited plants, in a rare show of unity from the far right to the far left. This time, a majority — including a sizeable chunk of Clergeau’s own Socialists — is expected to support whatever deal the negotiators manage to hammer out if that’s what it takes to get the regulation into law. That’s one reason EU diplomats argue Clergeau is no longer reflecting the balance inside the Parliament. But before any of that matters, negotiators still have to break the deadlock inside the room. A fresh round of technical meetings is scheduled for Thursday and next week, before what is expected to be a decisive political-level session in early December. Few around the table believe the remaining disagreements will magically resolve themselves before then. Which leaves one uncomfortable calculation hanging over every meeting. As another diplomat put it: “If that’s what it takes to get the deal through, then why not?”

Ban Ki-moon is the eighth secretary-general of the U.N. and the co-chair of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens. Ana Toni is the CEO of COP30. As world leaders gather in Belém, Brazil for this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), we are standing at a global tipping point. 2024 broke temperature records, as the world temporarily surpassed the 1.5 degrees Celsius target for the first time. And now, we’re on track to cross it permanently within just five years. This means adaptation action has never been more vital for our survival. From the year 2000 to 2019, climate change already cost the world’s most vulnerable countries an estimated $525 billion. This burden only continues to rise, putting lives at risk and undoing hard-won development gains, with global annual damages likely to land somewhere between $19 trillion and $59 trillion in 2050. Even more sobering, the world economy is already locked into a 19 percent loss of income by 2050 due to climate change, no matter how successful today’s mitigation efforts are. This makes one thing clear: The consequence of inaction is far greater than the consequence of action. The world must stop seeing adaptation as a cost to bear but as an investment that strengthens economies and builds healthier, more secure communities. Every dollar invested in adaptation can generate more than 10 times that in benefits through avoided losses, as well as induced economic, social and environmental benefits. Every dollar invested in agricultural research and development generates similar returns for smallholder farmers, vulnerable communities and ecosystems too. This remains true even if climate-related disasters don’t occur. Effective adaptation does more than save lives — it makes the economic case for resilience. And if we really want to tackle the crises of today’s world, we need to put people — especially those most vulnerable — at the center of all our conversations and efforts. Those least responsible for climate change are the ones our financing must reach. Here, locally led adaptation provides a path forward, focusing on giving communities agency over their futures, addressing structural inequalities and enhancing local capacities. Today, more than 2 billion people depend on smallholder farms for their livelihoods, but as little as 1.7 percent of climate finance reaches Indigenous communities and locally operated farms. Small-scale agri-food systems, which are essential to many in developing countries, receive a mere 0.8 percent of international climate finance. This is deeply unjust. These are the people and systems most threatened by climate impacts — and they’re often the best-placed ones to deliver locally effective and regionally adaptive solutions. To that end, appropriate investments in global networks like the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) could accelerate and scale technologies that can be adopted by these local systems. These tools could then be used to improve resilience and increase productivity in low- and middle-income countries, while also reducing inequalities and advancing gender equity and social inclusion. The world economy is already locked into a 19 percent loss of income by 2050 due to climate change. | Albert Llop/Getty Images Scaling such efforts will be crucial in moving toward systemic climate solutions. Our ambition is to move from negotiation to implementation to protect lives, safeguard assets and advance equity. But it’s important to remember that adaptation is distinct — it is inherently local; shaped by geography, communities and governance systems. Meeting this challenge will require more than just pledges. It will necessitate high-quality public and private adaptation finance that is accessible to vulnerable countries and communities. That’s why governments around the world — especially those in high-income countries — must design institutional arrangements and policies that raise additional public funds, incentivize markets and embed resilience into every investment decision. The decade since the Paris Agreement laid the foundations for a world at peace with the planet. And with COP30 now taking place in the heart of the Amazon, we must make adaptation a global priority and see resilience as the investment agenda of the 21st century. At its core, climate finance should be driving development pathways that put people first. In Belém, leaders must now close the adaptation finance gap and ensure funding reaches those on the front lines. They need to back investable national resilience strategies, replicate successful initiatives and put resilience at the center of financial decision-making. COP30 needs to be transformative and lead to markets that reward resilience, communities that are better protected and economies built on firmer, more climate-resilient foundations. Let this be the moment we finally move from awareness to alignment, and from ambition to action. Our collective survival depends on it. Question is, will our leaders have the political will to seize it?

BRUSSELS — Europe’s food system depends on an endangered species: its farmers. Every year, thousands of them retire and fewer take their place. Across the countryside, barns are shuttered, land is leased to ever-larger holdings and rural schools quietly close. The result is fewer people growing food, more imports filling supermarket shelves and a profession slipping into decline. That’s the slow-moving crisis Brussels is set to confront on Tuesday, when Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen unveils the EU’s Strategy for Generational Renewal in Agriculture — a plan to keep the next generation of food producers from giving up before they’ve begun. Young farmers have been asking lawmakers to act for well over a decade, said Peter Meedendorp, the 25-year-old president of the European Council of Young Farmers, or CEJA, speaking by phone as he rushed back from his tractor on the Dutch farm he runs with his father and brothers. In the run-up to the strategy’s release, Meedendorp has been splitting his time between the fields and Brussels. While he’s eager to see what Hansen delivers, he’s also wary: “To what extent can we make all the nice recommendations reality in the field if no finance is attached?”  The European Commission wants member countries to spend 6 percent of their Common Agricultural Policy money on generational renewal — double the current level. If countries make good on that target, CEJA’s cause could be on the receiving end of over €17 billion between 2028 and 2034, a budgetary boost compared with recent years. The question is whether the plan can actually stop Europe’s farms from disappearing. PRICED OUT Over a third of farm managers in Europe are over 65, while less than one in eight are under the age of 40.  “It’s not that young people don’t want to farm — it’s that it’s nearly impossible to start,” said Sara Thill, the 21-year-old vice president of Luxembourg’s young farmers group LLJ, in an interview in Brussels last week.  Young farmers struggle to find available and affordable land to start working. One hectare of arable land in the EU costs almost €12,000. That price rises to over €90,000 on average in Meedendorp’s native Netherlands, up from €56,000 a decade ago.  “When you start, the banks ask for guarantees your parents can’t give — it’s a vicious circle,” said Florian Poncelet, a 29-year-old beef farmer who heads Belgian regional young farmers’ association FJA. Roy Meijer, chair of the Dutch young farmers farmers’ group NAJK, put it bluntly: “Banks look at young farmers as risk. If you’re 25 and want to buy land, forget it.” Across Europe, young farmers sound more impatient than nostalgic. They see agriculture not as a tradition to protect but a business to reinvent. “Young farmers aren’t waiting for subsidies,” Meijer said, pushing back against the idea that they expect easy money from Brussels. What they want, he argued, is predictability — rules that don’t change with every new reform, and recognition that they’re entrepreneurs like any others. “People my age aren’t afraid of innovation,” he added. “We want to use drones, data, AI. But to invest, we need clear, long-term rules. You can’t build a business on shifting ground.” UPPING THE ANTE Brussels has been trying to lure new farmers for decades through its CAP, with mixed results. Member countries currently dedicate 3 percent of their EU-funded farm payments to young farmer schemes — about €6.8 billion between 2023 and 2027. Now Hansen wants to up the ante. A recent draft of the strategy, obtained by POLITICO, sets a goal to double the share of EU farmers under 40 to nearly a quarter by 2040. To get there, the Commission wants countries to spend 6 percent of their CAP budgets on young farmers, limit payments to retirees and offer loans of up to €300,000 for new entrants. It also urges capitals to use tax reform and land-use policies as tools to make farming more attractive, while touting the Commission’s own plans to publish a bioeconomy strategy next month. Young farmers’ groups worry the ambition may outstrip the means. Unlike the current farm budget, which enforces the 3 percent minimum, the 6 percent target is only aspirational. That has left CEJA concerned that some governments could spend even less. Young farmers fear that generational renewal will struggle to compete against other funding priorities, and that the new strategy’s fate may hinge less on good intentions than on the next CAP itself — a reform already under fire from both farm lobbies and lawmakers. Commission officials have pushed back on those criticisms, pointing to the various funding streams young farmers could access through the new “starter pack” in the future CAP and the upcoming generational renewal strategy. The Commission has also suggested restructuring CAP payments to divert funding from large farmers to smaller — and younger — ones.  Nonetheless, “not earmarking any money for a specific group of young farmers is a signal,” Meedendorp insisted. “We have a commissioner who bills himself as a young farmer commissioner, who is also the one proposing a CAP without any earmarking for young farmers.”

BRUSSELS — European farming leaders and green groups are girding for a long, hard fight following the Commission’s bombshell proposal for a new long-term budget and Common Agricultural Policy directly before the summer recess.  They share two fears upon returning to Brussels: that funding is under threat, and that member countries could take drastically different approaches to divvying up the money. Member countries will need to give out a minimum of €294 billion in income support for farmers between 2028 and 2034, according to the European Commission’s new proposal. That reduced cash pot includes subsidies based on the size of farms, incentives for eco-friendly practices, support for new and young farmers, and a host of other funding streams.  “The competition within each member state that these priorities will have is really very high,” anticipated Marco Contiero, EU agriculture policy director at Greenpeace.  Contiero wasn’t optimistic that environmental measures will triumph: “The budget dedicated to environmental measures and climate action — that’s where a massacre has taken place, unfortunately.” “It’s up to member states,” he continued. “They can, if there is willingness, increase enormously the action to make our farming more sustainable … But looking at the history of member states’ decisions, this is extremely unlikely.” The reform proposal follows a season of rural discontent across Europe earlier last year, with tractors lining the streets to express rage over cuts to fuel subsidies, high costs and cheap imports. As the European election that followed brought a farmer-friendly political tilt, lawmakers and farm lobbies expressed strong opposition to the Commission’s proposals. Copa-Cogeca, the powerful EU farmers’ lobby, in a statement labeled the proposed new agricultural policy and long-term budget the “Black Wednesday of European agriculture,” and has vowed to “remain strongly mobilised.” FEELING THE SQUEEZE The restructuring of the EU’s agriculture budget makes direct comparisons to the 2021-2027 period difficult — but analysis by Alan Matthews, professor emeritus of European agricultural policy at Trinity College Dublin, suggests the new plan represents a 15 percent reduction. And that’s before taking inflation into account. The new purse for the agricultural policy, commonly known as CAP, guarantees that around €300 billion will go into farmers’ pockets through various streams funded by the EU and co-financed by member countries. The burden of spending for things like climate incentives will be shared, while area-based support — paid out to farmers per hectare — will come from the EU’s coffers.   To deliver on promises to better target support for young or small farmers, European Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen has large landowners in his sights. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images Environmentalists worry that requiring member countries to chip in to unlock funding for climate-protection measures will deter their uptake, particularly given the overall budget reduction.  “If you tell me ‘more incentives and less rules,’ and you don’t provide me with a decent ring-fenced budget for those incentives to exist, you’re cutting rules and not providing incentives,” said Contiero. “And that’s the overall trap of this new proposal.” Similarly, young farmers are worried that their interests will fall by the wayside without a legally binding target for making sure they get their piece of the pie. Under the current CAP, 3 percent of funding goes to this group. In the fall, a 6 percent “aspirational” target will be announced — which leaves the European Council of Young Farmers unimpressed. An aspirational target in the context of a constrained budget means that its members “have to fight for money for young farmers, rather than what is now the case: that they have a certainty of 3 percent,” explained the organization’s president, Peter Meedendorp.  A Commission official familiar with the file, granted anonymity to speak candidly, dismissed those concerns, noting the legislation mandates member countries “shall” prioritize young farmers in their national plans, meaning they cannot be ignored. Nonetheless, the wine industry shares similar worries. Interventions to support the sector in the past had dedicated budgets. Now, such support is a single item on the list of  income-support measures member countries provide to farmers from the overall CAP pot.  “The Commission is sending the hot potato to member states,” said Ignacio Sánchez Recarte, secretary-general of the European Committee of Wine Companies. He argues that the plan risks damaging the level playing field and a bloc-wide approach to wine policy. ON THE DEFENSIVE To deliver on promises to better target support for young or small farmers, European Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen has large landowners in his sights. Traditionally, large farms win out on CAP payments: The latest data suggests that 20 percent of CAP beneficiaries receive 80 percent of direct payments. Under the new proposal, member countries can choose to pay farmers an average of €130 to €240 per hectare — up to a limit of €100,000, with progressive reductions in payments to that point.  Jurgen Tack, secretary-general at the European Landowners’ Organization, said that this proposal to limit subsidies risks ignoring professional farmers, who contribute significantly to European food security, in favor of less profitable and productive enterprises. The new CAP budget is “exactly the opposite of what we should support. Because what we see is that it’s no longer productivity, it’s becoming more and more a social support to farms,” he argued.  Several environmental organizations support limiting payments to large farms to encourage fairer distribution of funds and to free up money for environmental projects. In response, Tack contended that profitability and sustainability go hand in hand: The more money a farm has, the more it can spend on sustainable practices at scale. That debate may be irrelevant, as several previous attempts by the Commission to introduce such limits to subsidies since the 1990s failed to overcome opposition from key EU countries dominated by large farms. The most recent attempt to introduce such limits only survived the legislative process as a voluntary measure.  Contiero of Greenpeace wasn’t optimistic over how proposals to limit subsidies to large farms will fare over the next two years of negotiations: “This will be subject to the European Parliament and Council chainsaw. Everyone is waiting to see how horrible that massacre will be.”

BRUSSELS — The European Commission is trying to limit the amount of money any single farmer can receive in subsidies, putting it at odds with some member countries and large-scale agricultural producers. This isn’t the first (or second) time that rules limiting payments to large farms — referred to in EU-speak as “capping” and “degressivity” — have been proposed by the Brussels-based executive. Previous attempts have been met with fierce opposition, and even as he announced the new plan, Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen anticipated hostility. “I know that certain member states will not like it. Certain regions in the European Union will not like it. But if we have to deal with the same amount of money and we want to better support young farmers, new farmers, small farmers, well, we have to take it from somewhere,” he told members of the European Parliament during a grilling on the new Common Agricultural Policy proposal. Ahead of negotiations that start in earnest this fall with the Council of the EU, which represents the bloc’s 27 member countries, we crunched the numbers on which countries may be most affected by the proposed changes to the CAP in the bloc’s next seven-year fiscal term. BIG PICTURE In the 2023 financial year, 20 percent of the EU’s farms received 80 percent of direct payments. The majority of these payments are decoupled area-based payments, meaning that farmers are paid per hectare regardless of what they produce.  This means large-scale farms can benefit from huge payouts.    In order to limit these, the EU’s new proposal would allow member countries to pay farmers anywhere from €130 to €240 on average per hectare. No individual farmer would receive more than €100,000 annually in area-based income support.  Up to that threshold, member countries would need to progressively reduce the amount of money paid out to farmers depending on the amount (e.g. a 25 percent reduction between €20,000 and €50,000 or 50 percent between €50,000 and €70,000). IN THE FIRING LINE Over 54 percent of the money paid out as decoupled payments in the 2023 financial year was spent on payments over €20,000. That suggests over half of decoupled payment spending could have been subject to capping or degressivity if the Commission’s proposed rules were in place at the time.  That number rises to over 85 percent in Slovakia and Czechia. In these countries, large farms of 50 hectares or more account for over 90 percent of the countries’ utilized agricultural area. By comparison, on an EU-wide basis, large farms work around two-thirds of the utilized agricultural area. At the other end of the spectrum, in Greece, 90 percent of the money paid out as decoupled payments went to farmers getting less than €20,000. So only the remaining 10 percent of the money paid out would have been at risk of impact by the Commission’s new proposals. ON THE GROUND While large swathes of funds could be affected by capping and degressivity, the vast majority of farmers in the bloc would not be directly impacted.  Over 90 percent of farmers in the EU received less than the €20,000 threshold in decoupled payments in the 2023 financial year.  Around 40 percent of the beneficiaries of decoupled payments in Luxembourg and France could feel the pinch if the Commission successfully passes new rules limiting payments. But in every other EU country this number is below 25 percent.  WHAT IT ALL MEANS The new rules would “hit hardest those farmers who are currently the backbone of European production,” argues Farm Europe, a farm industry think tank. It argues that the proposed rules are simply a cost-cutting measure, and not geared toward actual fairness.  Théo Paquet, senior policy officer for Agriculture at the European Environmental Bureau, which represents a network of environmental citizens’ groups, hopes that this will be a first step toward “real redistribution” and the eventual phasing out of area-based income support that isn’t linked to any results.  In the meantime, “we are facing a lot of environmental impacts on the agricultural sector and there needs to be money made available for that. And for us, this is clearly where the money needs to be made available,” he argued.  Whether the proposal survives wrangling between the Council, Parliament and Commission will become clear as negotiations kick off after the summer. Finally, it’s important to note that the data used in this article is the latest publicly available data, pertaining to the 2023 financial year, meaning the 2022 CAP claim year.  This means that the decoupled payments included payment types that existed under the previous CAP that are no longer relevant, for example the greening payment. The figures used in this article are thus illustrative, assuming that under the next CAP the distribution of payments remains similar to previous years. 

Alexander Lukashenko’s stubborn grip on the Belarusian economy plunged the potato-happy country into a spud shortage this spring. Critics of the authoritarian ruler, who in January grabbed a seventh term in power, say he has warped the economy with strict price controls on staples like potatoes — while encouraging citizens to snitch on grocery stores that flout regime rules.  The limits, launched by Lukashenko in October 2022 as he aimed to keep prices low and stave off inflation, instead made potatoes far less profitable for farmers to produce.  Opponents say that decisions made by Lukashenko’s team stunted production last year and pushed many cash-strapped farmers to sell their produce to neighboring Russia, humiliating the Minsk regime and crippling grocery stores expected to sell potatoes on the cheap. Paltry potato price increases weren’t keeping up with rising costs for farmers and retailers, and the country’s demotivated farmers in turn planted fewer potatoes. Belarus harvested 3.1 million tons of potatoes in 2024, down from more than 4 million a year prior. “If you know from the history of the Soviet Union, when people don’t have motivation, you cannot really force them to do work very well,” said Lev Lvovskiy, academic director at the flagship Belarusian BEROC economic think tank. The irony: Lukashenko himself once led a collective farm in Gorodets, in the east of modern-day Belarus, during the twilight years of Soviet communism. The price controls instituted by Minsk made selling to Russia a highly profitable proposition. Potatoes cost over twice as much in Russia as in Belarus in March, according to BEROC data. And Belarus exported about 200,000 tons of potatoes to Russia in 2024, making it the No. 1 supplier of the staple crop to its neighbor.  The financial incentives of trade with Russia aren’t lost on the government. Lukashenko himself has implored farmers to produce enough potatoes to feed both Minsk and Moscow. “We need to help our Russian kinfolk. And besides, we will earn good money from it,” he said in May. ROTTEN POTATOES Due to the resulting shortage, however, the regime temporarily banned the export of potatoes — including to Russia — absent a license beginning in December 2024. Many farmers have responded to the restrictions by labeling healthy potatoes as spoiled, and continued to funnel them to Russia, Lvovskiy told POLITICO.  The result of the upheaval: Small, scarce and sometimes rotten potatoes in Belarusian grocery stores, a phenomenon that escalated in March and April. This shows how “Lukashenko and his administration can artificially create deficits of goods that were in enormous numbers before,” said Aleś Alachnovič, economic adviser to exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. The irony: Lukashenko himself once led a collective farm in Gorodets, in the east of modern-day Belarus, during the twilight years of Soviet communism. | Belarus president press service That’s not the regime’s line.  “We made adjustments to the government resolution several times based on the reality on the ground. Thus, all negative trends in trade and in manufacturing were nipped in the bud. Price regulation did not cause any imbalances. There is a sufficient amount of goods on the shelves at reasonable prices,” Ivan Vezhnovets, first deputy minister of antimonopoly regulation and trade, said in a statement in March. In a sign of just how much the market moves in accordance with Lukashenko’s wishes, so-called washed potatoes — better-quality spuds not under the price controls — remained on shelves but at significantly higher prices. To incentivize farmers to grow more and sell domestically, officials jacked up the maximum price of the regular potatoes in April. And in late May, the state reversed a ban on imports of certain foodstuffs, including potatoes, from European Union countries classed as “unfriendly,” to try to address the self-inflicted shortage. “Now, [availability is] getting better,” Lvovskiy told POLITICO.  But apart from massaging international trade, Minsk’s solution to the crisis in supermarkets has been to assert even more control.  Lukashenko in June suggested that unnamed “certain individuals” had manufactured the shortage to punish the government’s economic policy. “There were plenty of potatoes. But the supply was limited in order to demonstrate the adverse effects of the president interfering with pricing practices. But when [the State Control Committee] showed up with handcuffs and placed them on the table, potatoes became available,” he said at a government conference. In early May, the regime’s State Control Committee launched a hotline for shoppers to report grocery stores that either weren’t selling potatoes or charged too much. “Part of the strategy is just to harass all these retail chains in [the] hope that they would be so afraid of prison that they would come up with potatoes from pure air,” Lvovskiy said. It isn’t exactly a foolproof plan. “We believe that it proves, once again, the inefficiency of the policies that Lukashenko is pursuing, definitely,” said Vladzimir Astapenka, the Brussels-based representative for international and European cooperation in Tsikhanouskaya’s United Transitional Cabinet in exile. “But he tries to survive. He tries to stay afloat.”