To ensure to European citizens quality and fair priced food, to support the farmers and producers’ incomes, to create new jobs, to protect the environment and landscape and to mitigate climate change. These are some of the CAP's most important goals and the CAP is among the oldest and most recognized European Union (EU) policies, a key instrument in the making of the EU, with common rules from the Scandinavian countries to Malta and from Croatia to Portugal. A policy concerning not only agriculture, but the whole management of the European rural areas, responsible of around 44 million of jobs and covering 48% of the EU territory. CAPsizing's specific objectives: to involve farmers in the debate on the future reforms of the agri-food sector for the next programming period 2021-2027; to raise awareness about the CAP among agricultural high school, college and university students and, most important, to gather their proposals for a better actions against the impact of climate changes, as well as the increase of healthy eating habits. <\/p>\n
CAPsizing – For climate resilience is co-financed by the Directorate General Agriculture and rural development of the European Commission and has received tha patronage by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture.
\nThe final event has been hosted by the EU Commission Representation in Italy in its conference hall called Spazio Europa and participants have included representatives from various political parties and from the main Italian stakeholders’ organizations, together with members of associations, universities, research institutes which have been actively involved in the project implementation and students from some of the agricultural high schools involved in the workshops organized by Kyoto Club within the CAPsizing project activities. <\/p>\n
The conference, moderated by Roberto Calabresi,<\/strong> the Coordinator of the Kyoto Club’s Agriculture and Forests Working Group, has been opened by Vito Borrelli <\/strong>– Deputy Head of the European Commission Representation in Italy<\/strong>, who briefly introduced the CAP by outlining the current situation and the direction foreseen for the future programming period, highlighting that the new CAP will have to guide the transition towards a more sustainable agriculture, by contributing to the economic dynamics and the socio-cultural context of the rural areas<\/strong> . <\/p>\n The first session about the CAP and the national agricultural policies focused on environmental sustainability and climate resilience, has been started by Senator Francesco Mollame<\/strong> – Secretary of the Italian Senate's IX Agriculture and agri-food production<\/strong> Committee, who remarked the necessity for the CAP to be transformed into CAEP – Common Agricultural and Environmental Policy and to move towards an agriculture which gives more protection to the environment and the territory, with the production of quality and healthy food for the citizens. <\/p>\n Francesco Ciancaleoni<\/strong>, from the Environment and Territory Department of Coldiretti<\/strong>, who insisted on the need of recognizing to agriculture – both in the CAP and in other programming tools like the recent National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan – a higher role in countering the negative effects of climate change, both for adaptation and mitigation. He suggested that for this purpose greater support should be foreseen to all those techniques, like organic farming, which can maximize the climate and environmental performances of the farm and for those investments meant to act on the consuming models and on the dissemination of territorial development dynamics based on proximity and on new inputs by the consumers, i.e. short supply chain and Km 0 productions. Moreover, it is necessary to guarantee a fair income to the farmers, by internalizing the benefits for the society obtained by the maintenance of the agricultural environment and of its capacity of creating and keeping alive a healthy territory producing common goods, used by everyone for free. For this reason, he argued, the new CAP will have to reserve a dedicated section to climate-friendly initiatives, to the efficient use of natural resources, to the preservation of biodiversity and to the promotion of eco-systemic services. Without agriculture there is no territory, he warned, and that, to keep alive the social fabric which guarantees the survival of the territories, particularly in the internal areas, the priority is still to ensure adequate incomes for the farmers, with a special attention needed for younger ones and for small farms. Davide Marino<\/strong>, from the University of Molise <\/strong>reminded that the whole agriculture (both sustainable and not sustainable) produces at global level around 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, it is responsible for 70% of desertification and that it is the first impact factor for the biodiversity loss. He reminded that, as of today the CAP in the EU still has not reached its target objectives. It is necessary then to change approach, both by agriculture and by the CAP, by introducing more environmentally friendly systems but, especially for the CAP, a measuring system for the achieved results, including factors like soil and biodiversity and an economic reward linked to results. Another big challenge, particularly for Italian agriculture, he argued, is the absence of generational change, which has led to the abandonment of great portions of farmland, whose property is often still undetermined (in the last 50 years 1\/3 of Italian farmland has changed its designated use: 10% due to soil consumption, while the other 90% for farmland abandonment). It is necessary to change the rules by directly involving mayors in the next CAP, to as muchas possible allow the recovery and re-use of the abandoned territories, because an abandoned territory absorbs less CO2 than a farmland planted and managed sustainably. <\/p>\n Franco Ferroni,<\/strong> Head of the agriculture department of WWF Italia<\/strong>, has spoken also on behalf of Coalizione #CambiamoAgricoltura <\/strong>(# ChangeAgriculture Coalition). He confirmed the data already presented by the previous speaker concerning the biodiversity loss due to the human activities and reminded that, while it is true that the 20% reduction in the agricultural sector greenhouse gas emissions is a positive development (confirned also by ISPRA, the Environment Ministry's Italian Environmental Research and Protection Institute), the achieved reductions, thanks to the greening implemented through the current CAP phase, cannot be considered sufficient. It will therefore be necessary to focus more on the future CAP environmental commitments, including also a result-oriented reward for those farmers who demonstrate real achievements. In addition, with reference to the Italian situation and to maximize impacts, a closer cooperation between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Environment, both deeply involved in the environmental and climate change issues, would be welcome. <\/p>\n Paolo Carnemolla <\/strong>– President of Federbio <\/strong>– elaborated on the importance of organic agriculture for the next challenges we will all be confronted with regarding food, water and energy production, with the organic sector to be necessarily expanded and further supported. <\/p>\n Salvatore Basile<\/strong> – President of the International Network of Eco Regions (IN.N.E.R<\/strong>) – reminded that climate change affects everyone and that to save the planet we need to highlight very clearly in our schedule and in those of our governments the individual and collective actions, to be implemented day by day, needed to reach the goals of the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030. This is what the eco regions communities are implementing. Territories where farmers, consumers, public administrators, associations, schools and research institutes act together for the sustainable management of the resources, following the organic farming and agroecology principles. A strategic plan is elaborated and monitored yearly, with common objectives and concrete initiatives to be adopted. The community is actively involved and acts on the territory with a virtuous governance towards a feeding system truly healthy and sustainable. For all this to be realized, it is however necessary to inform and push the citizens to a change; this is exactly what Kyoto Club has intended to do with the CAPsizing project, he stated, to which we have participated as INNER network with great pleasure and satisfaction, and will continue by disseminating and enhancing the important results achieved. <\/p>\n Giuseppe Blasi <\/strong>– Head of the Department of European and international policies and of rural development of the Ministry of Agriculture<\/strong> – has updated participants about the next CAP proposals and about the role of regional governments which, he said, is not going to change. The only constraint will concern the definition fo the measures, which will be decided jointly at national level by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Environment, through some working panels already active. The new programming is not planned to start soon, he has argued, due to the slow start of the activities and it is foreseeably not going to enter into force before one year, also due to the European elections which, with the completion of the legislative term, have limited the decision-making of the EU Parliament and of its committees. <\/p>\n Nicola Colonna <\/strong>– Researcher at ENEA<\/strong>, the Italian Government's National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, argued that the CAP is a crucial policy even for the field of environment and can play an important role in the dissemination of innovative farming techniques: let’s just think, for example, of conservation agriculture, which contributes to reduce the productions' carbon footprint and, at the same time, helps preserve the organic matter and to protect the soil, or of precision agriculture, a method using innovative tools meant to intervene on the farmland by taking into account its real needs and the bio-chemical and physical soil features. <\/p>\n Clementina Taliento <\/strong>– Kyoto Club<\/strong>'s communication officer, described the different activities implemented throughout the project, notably twenty-six workshops in high schools and universities, one study visit in a smart farm, twenty-one webinars focused on specific topics and two important dissemination events, at the beginning and at the end, involving a lot of different actors. Among the results, it has to be surely considered the inclusion of the CAP as priority among the seven proposals presented yearly to the national government by the Green Economy Council and into the current and future educational programmes of most of the schools involved. <\/p>\n
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\nAccording to Barbara Di Rollo<\/strong> – Head of the Policies, Environmental Resources and Climate Change Department of CIA – Italian Confederation of Farmers<\/strong> – For the agricultural sector, on the policy level, the answer to the climate crisis is the efficient implementation of the CAP measures. Emission reduction, empowerment of the carbon absorption capacity and climate change adaptation measures must constitute
\na priority axis of the next National Strategic Plan – foreseen by the next CAP regulation – now under discussion and expected to be in force for 2021-2027. <\/p>\n