EU farm ministers will meet in Luxembourg on Tuesday to debate their positions on carbon farming, the implementation of CAP plans and to hear concerns around proposals to slash pesticide usage by 50% by 2030.

A carbon farming framework on the common rules on the removal of carbon from the atmosphere was proposed by the European Commission last December.

The Commission stated in its proposal that carbon farming could financially support farmers to carry out activities, such as rewetting peat soils or planting catch crops, to help the EU meet climate and biodiversity targets.

Tuesday’s meeting will hear member states’ views on the topic from agricultural and forestry perspectives.

Concerns

Concerns will be raised by some member states on the proposed sustainable use of pesticides regulation (SUR), which lays out the rules countries will need to follow in cutting their use of sprays on farmland in half over the coming years.

The concerns will primarily be raised by states in central and eastern Europe.

Market uncertainty resulting from the war in Ukraine will also be discussed in a private sitting of the Council of Ministers.

The Commission plans on sending €100m in funds to member states along the EU’s eastern flank to compensate farmers for market losses resulting from the import of Ukrainian agri-food goods taken into the EU by road, particularly grain.

This is on top of €56m already allocated to three of these countries.

The meeting will hear the state of play in member states rolling out their CAP strategic plans for 2023-2027.

Environment ministers

Farm ministers will meet just one week after environmental ministers met informally in Sweden.

Member states are still planning to come to a common position on the Commission’s proposal for a nature restoration law within the next two months - a key milestone in showing what the biodiversity rules will mean for farmers.

The planned law will place legally-binding targets on each country to restore nature and includes measures like rewetting bogs and farmland on drained peat soils.

“We are still aiming to reach a general approach in June regarding the nature restoration law in June and we are seeing progress on negations ongoing in the working party,” Sweden’s environment minister Romina Pourmokhtari said after the meeting.

Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius stated last week that “scares” put out by farmers’ representatives saying that farmland will need to be set aside and not actively farmed under the law were not true.

Improvements

Commissioner Sinkevicius claimed that this would not be the case, as the law will allow for economic activities including farming and forestry to continue in areas that need improvements on biodiversity.

“When I meet with representatives of agriculture, with ministers responsible for agriculture, they say the big issue is land [set] aside, but there is nothing on land [set] aside in nature restoration,” he said.

“The targets are on pollinators and farmland birds.

“We really want to combine the economic activity in the nature restoration efforts,” the commissioner added.