Greening the common agricultural policy: past experiences and future challenges toward multifunctional agriculture

Over the past decade, scientific and policy circles throughout Europe have been debating about how to best create working landscapes that balance agricultural production and environmental conservation in an economically sustainable fashion. In this regard, multi-functional landscape strategies have been perceived as a powerful instrument to help the European Union achieve its sustainable development goals. In an attempt to put these ideas in place, past reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and more recently the CAP post-2013 reform, contain a set of environmental standards and objectives that aim to improve overall environmental sustainability of European farms. This study examines the current CAP environmental standards both from conservationist and rural development perspectives, seeking to identify whether such measures can most successfully foster the concept of multi-functionality. Through an analysis of the legislative history of the CAP reform process, as well as a review of the literature on the conceptual frameworks to multifunctional agriculture, and particularly exploring the role of institutions in driving environmentally sustainable farming systems across the EU, the research findings suggest that environmental objectives have only been partially integrated into the CAP, either because of their limited scope or their unsuccessful implementation. At the policy level, these findings question the effectiveness of EU policy efforts to use CAP subsidies as an instrument to deliver environmental goals and contribute to the multiple functions of agriculture. CAP environmental objectives have to a considerable degree remained fragmented, which reinforces the need to promote more integrative policy approaches as a way to explore the potentials of multifunctional agriculture in all its complexity, and to achieve broader sustainability and rural development goals.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

European Union Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Oliveira De Aguiar, Rayane

Contributors dc:contributor

• Endres, Jody M

• Common Agricultural Policy
• Multifunctionality

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2015 Rayane Oliveira De Aguiar

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/88042

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F88042