Report from the symposium ”Working together for an environmentally ambitious, evidence-based agricultural policy”

Published 14 January 2020

Farming landscape with forest in one end and a red house in the other. Photo.

On the 5th of December 2019, BECC organized a full day of science-to-policy discussions in cooperation with the thematic collaboration initiative LU Land, on the topic of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is currently undergoing a reform. The CAP is a strong shaping force of European land use practices, and therefore also strongly influences biodiversity and ecosystems in the agricultural landscape.

The purpose of the day – held at Kulturen in Lund – was to discuss how researchers and stakeholders could work together to ensure an evidence-based CAP that is environmentally ambitious, and in line with global and national targets of sustainability and biodiversity conservation. The day offered a morning session of presentations from stakeholders involved in CAP negotiation and implementation and from researchers working on questions relating to the CAP’s impact on biodiversity, and its sustainability performance. In the afternoon, discussions continued in a smaller workshop.

Presentations

Henrik Smith (Coordinator of BECC):

Agricultural policymaking in practice

Fredrik Langdal (Permanent Representation of Sweden to the EU): CAP negotiations in practice

Marie Törnquist (Swedish Board of Agriculture):

How green is the CAP and how green could it be?

Juliana Dänhardt (Project leader, LU Land): Environmental payoff of the current CAP

Mark Brady (Agrifood Economics Center):

Guy Pe’er (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, iDiv):

Kimberly Nicholas (LUCSUS):

If you are interested in seeing the presentations of those not linked above, or if you have questions about the event, please contact pernilla [dot] borgstrom [at] cec [dot] lu [dot] se.