The European food system relies on an endangered species – farmers in the bloc who are getting older, while young people often leave farming before they even start, unable to compete with the big farmers, writes Politico.
Every year, thousands of farmers leave the profession due to age, and fewer and fewer new forces come to replace them. In many parts of Europe’s countryside, barns have collapsed, small schools are closing, and land is being leased to megafarms. As a result, less and less local food is being grown, and supermarket shelves are being taken over by imported products. The profession is also beginning to sink into oblivion.
Brussels is determined to fight this. Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen is scheduled to present an EU strategy for generational renewal in agriculture on the 21st of October. It is a plan with which the EU wants to ensure that young farmers stay in the profession.
Peter Meedendorp, president of the Council of Young Farmers in Europe (CEJA), said young farmers have been asking the bloc’s lawmakers to act for more than a decade. He split his time between his farm and Brussels as he prepared the new strategy. While he is eagerly awaiting Hansen’s message, he also questioned how many of the recommendations could be implemented without funding.
The European Commission wants member states to allocate 6% of their Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget specifically to generational renewal in farming.
The question remains whether the plan will actually stop the disappearance of European farms.
More than a third of European farmers are over 65, and only one in eight farmers is under 40. Sarah Thill, vice-president of Luxembourg’s LLJ, a group of young farmers, said it was not that young people did not want to go into farming. It was just that it was almost impossible to get started.
Finding land to build a farm is almost impossible. One hectare of farmland in the EU costs almost 12,000 euros, and in the Netherlands it can be as much as 90,000 euros per hectare. Florian Poncelet, head of the Belgian young farmers’ association FJA, said that banks are demanding guarantees from young parents who cannot provide them, and a vicious circle is forming. Roy Meijer, chairman of the Dutch young farmers’ group NAJK, was very blunt –
if someone is 25 years old and wants to buy land, they can forget about it.
Europe’s young farmers are more impatient than nostalgic – they see farming as a business, not a tradition to be protected. Meijer pointed out that young people do not expect subsidies and easy money from Brussels. What is needed is predictability and stability, and clear rules that do not change with each reform. Meijer added that people his age are not afraid of innovation, but they cannot build a business on a shaky foundation.
Brussels has long tried to attract young farmers with the help of the CAP. Hansen now wants to raise the bar and achieve a doubling of the number of farmers under 40 by 2040. That is why the EC wants to increase the share of the CAP allocated to young farmers, limit the costs for those who are retired and offer loans of up to 300,000 euros to young aspirants.
Young people fear that ambitions may be greater than possibilities. CEJA worries that governments may actually allocate even less to young farmers. There is also concern that generational renewal in agriculture will be less important than other priorities.
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