Outlook 2008: Does the CAP have a future?

With prices soaring on agricultural markets, arguments over biosecurity and food safety proliferating, and agriculture increasingly being viewed as a source of energy as much as a source of food, the question is increasingly being asked – what purpose does the Common Agricultural Policy serve in today's world?

The traditional concerns over high intervention stocks and depressed farm incomes are looking like an anachronism in the light of grain and dairy prices which have risen three-fold in some cases over the past two years. The butter and wheat mountains have been flattened, probably for good. But still the CAP is absorbing almost €55 billion (£41bn) in taxpayers' money every year.

The European Commission is currently subjecting the CAP to a 'Health Check' which will lead to some changes in the way the CAP works. But a more fundamental EU budget review is promised next year, which could lead to a huge shake-up in the structure of support for agriculture and the rural economy in Europe from 2014 onwards.

Some believe the time has now come to consign the CAP to history and to transfer responsibility for rural policy support back to national governments. Others believe the CAP should be reformed with a reduced overall budgetary burden, and with a greater focus on supporting the rural environment and rural communities. But in some parts of Europe, the claim is being made that with mounting concerns over global warming and global food supplies, the EU needs to support its farmers now more than ever…

The debate has been well and truly joined, and nowhere more so than at Agra Informa's Annual European Agricultural Outlook Conference - now in its 27th year – to be held in London on April 2-3 2008.

Among the speakers will be senior Commission agriculture official Poul Skytte Christoffersen, who will present a strategic overview of the CAP's future as seen from Brussels, while the UK perspective will be offered by Britain's Minister of State for Sustainable Food and Farming, Lord Rooker.

The conference will also address vital farm policy issues like the future for biofuels and bioenergy, the reform of the Single Farm Payment system, the impact of the planned abolition of milk quotas, the interface between agriculture and the environment, and the latest prospects for a WTO Doha Round agreement.

Outlook 2008: CAP Reform - A New Policy Framework for a New Era

Jury's Great Russell Street Hotel, London, April 2-3 2008

For further information contact Elspeth Rumary at conferences@agra-net.com or phone (+44) 207 017 7496.