Adopted INI report on generational renewal calls for land regulation at EU level

With half of the farming population set to retire in the next ten years, ECVC welcomes the adoption of the INI report and the measures outlined to ensure more new entrants are able to start farming across Europe. For small- and medium-scale farmers, it is clear that generational renewal is key to guaranteeing food sovereignty, maintaining lively rural areas and achieving climate justice.

Among the many factors that currently impede the process of generational renewal, access to land has been highlighted as one of the largest barriers for new entrants to farming, as confirmed by several studies.

ECVC therefore welcomes the INI report’s call to the European Commission to “to evaluate, in conjunction with the Member States and their regions, the possibility of action at EU level, including through legislative instruments and the promotion of sharing good practices, to improve the functioning of national farmland markets, enhance young farmers’ access to land and contribute to addressing land concentration and land grabbing issues”.

Following the 2017 INI report on the state of play of farmland concentration by Maria Noichl and the 2015 opinion from the EESC on the impact of land grabbing on family farming , this INI report gives clear mandate to the EC to implement farmland regulation measures as a way to tackle land concentration and ensure access to land and protection of soils.

Access to land has proven to be at the nexus of many of the current, urgent agricultural issues. the specific nature of agricultural land, as recognised by the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the goals of the CAP of ensuring a fair standard of living for the agricultural community, as recognised in the treaty of the functioning of the European Union, require harmonised action at the European level. At present, we have a common market on agricultural products but no common legislation on the main factor of production, land. This paradox cannot be allowed to continue.

ECVC therefore demands that the European Commission not only recognise the scope and urgency of this problem, but also take immediate and concrete action to ensure legislative instruments are put in place to tackle this issue.

For this reason, ECVC has presented to the European Commission a draft proposal for a European Directive on agricultural land and will organise an event on 26 October with EU representatives and other organisations who are calling for land regulation.