CCB response to the Consultation for the Impact Assessment on the “Common Agricultural Policy Towards 2020″proposals
CCB is very concerned that DG Agriculture does not understand and identify the relation between intensive agriculture practices that creates European-wide Eutrophication problems, as an important topic to address for the reform of the CAP after 2013. One very important environmental impact of existing EU agriculture subsidies is that the subsidies substantially contribute to the eutrophication problem in Europe. This is the reason why the relationship between agricultural subsidies and eutrophication must be addressed in the CAP reform.
The agricultural production in EU-countries create eutrophication water pollution problems in freshwater rivers and lakes and in sea areas. In the Baltic Sea 50 % of the nutrient pollution load comes as nutrient run-off from the agriculture sector in the Baltic catchment. This means that the Baltic Sea eutrophication problem cannot be solved if the agriculture sector does not make substantial reductions in its nutrient run-off. The CAP needs to create effective economic instruments and incentives to support such development.
