14/05/19
The EU must urgently reform damaging farming subsidies to stand a chance of saving nature, preventing the worst effects of climate change and reviving small farms and our rural regions, according to the Agriculture Atlas 2019 – a unique publication of facts and figures on the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) published by the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Friends of the Earth Europe and BirdLife Europe.
The Agriculture Atlas 2019 shows that:
- 70% of all subsidies are still granted without the fulfilment of goals including conserving the environment, keeping animals in appropriate conditions, protecting water, birds and insects, and maintaining life and livelihoods in rural areas
- On average more than 30% of the funds go to less than 2% of beneficiaries
- 3% of the EU’s biggest farms use more than half of the land for agriculture in the European Union
- The number of farms declined by 25% between 2003 and 2013
- The number of farmland birds has declined by 57% since 1980
