CAP Initiative – Dialogue for impactful agricultural policy
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) must steer towards a future where profitable agriculture provides food, solutions to the climate crisis and diversity loss, and contributes to security of our societies.
The Initiative fostered dialogue on what kind of agricultural policy will better serve us in the 2030s.
What?
The CAP Initiative brought together different actors during 2024 and 2025 for an open-minded discussion on European agricultural policy. We organised events in Brussels and across Europe and discussed the building blocks of a new policy in different online fora.
Why?
Farmers, consumers, and our planet deserve better agricultural policy. We are facing complex problems. Constructive dialogue between different actors is needed to create effective and appropriate policies.
Who?
The Initiative was open to organisations that want to contribute to the creation of holistically sustainable agricultural policy solutions. Farmer representatives, businesses, public authorities, and environmental organisations joined our network. Further down the page you can see which organisations rolled up their sleeves!
Join our network
Partners
Creating conditions for change through cooperation
Agriculture can be a solution to a number of current threats. Agricultural policy is one of the most important policy sectors in the European Union. The current CAP, despite its objectives, does not yet ensure the profitability of agriculture and does not sufficiently take into account the other benefits needed by our societies.
We need an open dialogue that combines multiple perspectives on what we expect from the policy and what kind of CAP could succeed in supporting the necessary change. The EU-wide CAP Initiative, launched by Baltic Sea Action Group, was open to all organisations that want to contribute to the creation of holistically sustainable agricultural policy solutions. The main idea of the Initiative was to inspire, spread, and enrich discussion on the CAP with connection to four big strategic objectives – profit, climate, nature, and security.
Framing agriculture by these four themes, the Initiative aimed to uncover new policy questions and opportunities to achieve the full potential of multifunctional agriculture as a strategic cornerstone of our societies. The Initiative came together in Brussels and in EU member states and produced communication materials. Partners of the Initiative were expected to agree with the Initiative’s main messages and its code of constructive debate.
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European agricultural policy must steer towards a future where profitable agriculture provides food, solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises, and contributes to adaptation and security in changing conditions. Current agricultural policies only enable some of the potential benefits of farming to be realised. With this Initiative, we want to launch a dialogue on what kind of agricultural policy will help us thrive in the 2030s.
Resources
We are compiling links and resources relevant to the initiative here.
Get in touch
Kaj Granholm
Project Manager, Regenerative Agriculture, EU affairs
#CAPInitiative