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In 2016, for every farm manager under 40 there were three farm managers over the age of 65 in the EU. The ageing of Europe’s farmers is one of the greatest challenges that rural areas are facing. The common agricultural policy's (CAP) impact on generational renewal is mostly positive, but remains limited notably in regions lacking basic infrastructure and services.
An evaluation was done to examine the effectiveness and relevance of the policy measures of the two pillars of the CAP implemented between 2014 and 2020. The measures assessed in the evaluation are those most relevant to generational renewal: direct payment support to young farmers, investment support, and business start-up aid.
The CAP generational renewal measures were found to...
- have a positive impact on the increase of the number of young farmers, although to a limited extent.
- improve the performance of farm businesses, their resilience, and the secure transfer of farms from the older to the younger generation.
- tend to increase the socio-economic sustainability of farm businesses after young farmers have set-up their business, rather than contributing to farm-succession.
- not be well adapted to outside of the-family farm transfers.
- help new farmers with the general costs following the set-up of their farm and of the early-years investment support.
- However, on its own it is insufficient, to address main entry barriers into farming such as access to land and capital issues.
Although the training level of young farm managers under 35 has increased over time, access to knowledge and advice is still insufficient. In 2016, only 43% of young farm managers had more than practical experience, compared to 32% on average for all EU farmers. The analysis shows the benefits of providing more formal training and advice as a condition for accessing capital grants, start-up aid and/or young-farmer direct payment supplement.
These were some key findings of the ‘Evaluation on the impact of the CAP on generational renewal, local development, and jobs in rural areas’ published by the European Commission.
April 8, 2021/ European Commission/ European Union.
https://ec.europa.eu/
