The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has long been a cornerstone of European Union (EU) agricultural policy, supporting farmers, ensuring food security, and fostering rural development. As the EU faces new challenges related to environmental sustainability and climate change, the CAP is evolving to address these issues. The integration of plant biostimulants into CAP frameworks offers a powerful tool to help achieve these goals, enhancing agricultural sustainability and resilience across Europe.
Plant biostimulants are natural products containing substances or microorganisms that stimulate plant growth and health by enhancing natural processes. These products offer several key benefits:
These benefits make biostimulants essential for optimising nutrient inputs and improving the resilience of European food systems, especially as climate events become more volatile and nutrient supply security becomes increasingly critical.
The current CAP introduces new mechanisms and incentives to promote environmental sustainability and climate resilience in European agriculture. These include enhanced conditionality and eco-schemes designed to encourage farmers to adopt best practices that reduce their environmental footprint and contribute to the EU’s Green Deal objectives.
The CAP’s flexible framework allows EU Member States to tailor their National Strategic Plans (NSPs) to meet specific national needs and objectives. This flexibility includes the ability to amend NSPs up to twice a year, enabling Member States to adapt to changing conditions such as climate events. EBIC encourages Member States to integrate biostimulants into their NSPs, recognising their contribution to environmental goals such as reducing nutrient losses, maintaining soil fertility, and supporting organic farming.
For example, Greece has already included biostimulants in its CAP Strategic Plan as part of its eco-schemes, offering financial incentives for their use in both arable and horticultural crops. The high demand from Greek farmers for these incentives highlights the potential for wider adoption of such measures across the EU.
Biostimulants fit well within the objectives of these eco-schemes, particularly in areas such as improved nutrient management, climate resilience and soil health.
EBIC advocates for the explicit recognition of biostimulants in eco-schemes across all Member States, ensuring that these products are leveraged to their full potential in the quest for more sustainable agriculture.
The new CAP also places a greater emphasis on strengthening Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS) to foster innovation among farmers. This includes providing guidance, education, and information on sustainable practices, such as the use of biostimulants and organic-based fertilisers. AKIS will play a crucial role in helping farmers adopt these innovative products and practices, ensuring that they can effectively contribute to the EU’s sustainability and climate goals.
The EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy sets ambitious targets, such as reducing nutrient losses by at least 50% by 2030 while ensuring no deterioration in soil fertility. Biostimulants are well-positioned to help achieve these targets by improving nutrient use efficiency, enhancing crop resilience, and reducing waste across the food production chain.
However, for the Farm to Fork Strategy to succeed, it must be effectively integrated with the CAP and other relevant EU policies. This includes ensuring coherence between the Fertilising Products Regulation (FPR), the CAP, and other initiatives such as the Biodiversity Strategy and the Circular Economy Action Plan.