European Ministers for Agriculture will discuss issues facing young farmers at a Council meeting in Brussels today.
The meeting will be the first to be attended by new Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan.
The Italian Presidency will brief the Council about difficulties still met by young farmers in the framework of the new CAP.
Whereas the reformed CAP provides for specific measures to support young farmers, there are still some obstacles relating to the setting-up of young entrepreneurs in agriculture. In particular, there are still some barriers to entry in the sector:
• economic barriers, such as lower income relative to other economic sectors;
• market barriers, difficulties to access the main factors of production, especially access to credit and access to agricultural land;
• weakness in the transfer of innovation, limited exchange of information and professional experience among all the different realities across the EU.
To overcome these barriers, the Italian Presidency is committed to bringing to the attention of the ministers feasible solutions for eliminating the aforementioned obstacles. The Presidency document will focus on three main elements: access to credit; access to production factors, access to knowledge and innovation.