The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a dynamic policy which has been adapted to new challenges through several reforms. These challenges include the more sustainable use of natural resources, climate change, increased competition from global markets and the need to maintain thriving rural areas across the EU. While the CAP has tried to catch up with continuous changes in European food and farming through those rounds of reform, it has resoundingly failed to respond to many other challenges addressed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A detailed analysis of more than 450 publications has shown that the CAP is not fit for purpose from both an environmental and a socio-economic perspective.
The organisations Global Nature Fund and Bodensee-Stiftung (Germany), Solagro and agoodforgood (France), Fundación Global Nature Spain (Spain) and IST Instituto Superior Técnico - Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal) released a Position Paper on how to reinforce biodiversity performance in the future Common Agricultural Policy.