Across Europe, small-scale farmers are essential actors in local food provisioning, yet they face structural barriers to accessing public support. While industrial agriculture continues to receive the lion’s share of EU subsidies, the scaffolding meant to support local food systems often proves patchy or inaccessible. What EU policy supports are there for smaller farmers to supply food locally? Oliver Moore and Ashley Parsons chew over the options.
Who are we talking about? Small and local
Often it is claimed that about 15% of farmers in the EU supply 50% or more of their produce locally. These tend to be very small farmers, with some countries having especially large direct sales—25% in Greece, 19% in Slovakia and some 18% in Hungary, Romania and Estonia. According to the European Parliamentary Research Service, in France, 21% of farmers sell their products within Short Food Supply Chains; this figure increases to half for vegetable growers and honey producers. For some EU member states however, local food provisioning is very weak: less than 5% in Malta, Austria and Spain.
There is no direct tracking of small-scale farmer supply into local markets in Europe, but there is some indirect information we can use, as well as wider overall statistics which provide relevant data. The latter however, tend to be surprisingly old.
However, drilling down into the details, it emerges that the original source of this claim goes back to research published in 2007, reported on in official EU documents in 2013, and repeated since.
More recent academic studies have complained that there is “confusion surrounding the definition of a local food scale” as well as “a critical lack of cross-country comparable data hindering the possibility of drawing generalisable conclusions on the benefits and drawbacks of local food systems.”
We do know that the number of farms and farmers is declining (though even this info at EU level needs an update, which is coming in November of this year).
Eurostat tells us that there were 9.1 million agricultural holdings in the EU in 2020, about two-thirds (63.8%) of which were less than 5 ha in size. Romania skews the figures somewhat, with almost 3 million small farms in 2020, a figure now clocking in at the still considerable 2.8 million small farms.
Generally the decline is even more rapid than this—between 2005 and 2020, the EU lost 5.3 million farms, with many being subsistence farms. Even among commercial farms, there’s a significant loss of smaller operations, with a 44% decline in farms with an economic output below €250,000 between 2007 and 2022, as Greenpeace’s Go Big or Go Bust report stated in 2024.
Policy supports
In the broadest terms, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reinforces the business-as-usual trajectory of supporting ever fewer larger agri-industrial farms.
CAP is founded on area-based payments—simply put, the more land you have the more money you get. There has been a slow and awkward path towards convergence of payments between member states and within member states, which is not yet complete.
Nevertheless it is still the case that 80% of payments go to 20% of recipients, and that these are not always straightforwardly farmers: for example, religious orders, concrete companies, stud farms and colleges are among the highest recipients in Ireland.
Even efforts at prioritising small producers, after lobbying, get watered down in the final CAP texts: what’s called “front loading”, or CRISS (Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability) is a payment for the first 30 hectares. However as all farmers get this – even those with over 30 hectares—this is an ‘all lives matter’ approach to supports.
Since 2013, short food supply chains have been recognised by EU policy – specifically Pillar 2 of the CAP, technically called the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD).
Pillar 2—always smaller than the production-orientated Pillar 1—was created in 1999/2000, following the Cork declaration earlier that decade.
It is here that local food provisioning can be supported. As well as food production, farm diversification, agri-tourism, young farmers, organic farming and other related areas, CAP’s Pillar 2 funds the LEADER initiative, which itself supports these areas and other aspects of rural development.
An ongoing problem has been the pillage of Pillar 2 as it receives an ever decreasing share of the CAP budget.
The massive rollback of environmental legislation including the Farm to Fork policy proposals saw the axing of the Sustainable Food Systems Law proposal. This could have been very helpful in developing support for small and local food providers.
Various national level supports, including via CAP Strategic Plans, can be seen in this 2023 pre-legislative synthesis of the Sustainable Food Systems Law.
So-called “simplification” over the past two years has seen a number of legislative rollbacks, but also a couple of changes that are potentially of benefit to small farmers: No inspections for small farmers under 10 ha (2024), and an increase in the Payment for Small Farmers from €1,200 to €2,500 (2025).
Also encouraging is the recent strengthening of rules around unfair trading practices in the agricultural and food supply chain. Amendments to the EU Directive 2019/633 in December 2024 have emphasised better contracts, better mediation, prompter payments and related rebalancing efforts.
Public procurement is a powerful policy lever, involving 250,000 public authorities and representing 14% of the EU’s GDP. With the EU due to update its public procurement directives, there seem to be many opportunities for improvements.
Meanwhile a number of public procurement initiatives have emerged to make this route to market more sustainable, including for local providers.
Local governments across Europe are behind the Buy Better Food campaign. Focussing on public food procurement as a key driver of food system transformation, the campaign includes municipalities from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Sweden.
And there are some promising signs in Ireland too, where since late 2024 public procurement contracts include a mandated percentage of organic produce.
All of this said, it is still very clear that agri-food will not be the focus of the EU’s spending—or at least limited to a very industrial notion of EU food security. Rather, the priorities will be industrial competitiveness, military spending and similar.
CAP itself may be rolled into a new all-purpose pot of EU cash and, Pillar 2 is likely to disappear, and/or be rolled into Pillar 1, despite the opposition of up to 20 member states.
Overall then, there is a built-in bias towards larger and more industrial farms, and the trends are towards these, away from local food provisioning, and to areas outside of agri-food in EU policy and spending.
Action on the ground
Vache Nantaise heritage breed: Building locally what policy fails to support
In western France, farmers, chefs, and butchers are co-creating a supply chain around heritage breeds like the Vache Nantaise cow.
“We’re building this together to avoid a corporatist vision—either purely peasant or purely culinary,” explains Xavier Hamon, one of the initiators.
The group is developing shared tools: pricing models, knowledge exchange, and common values to distinguish their work from greenwashed industrial narratives.
“Too many hours of labour—especially logistics and coordination—aren’t counted in current pricing,” he adds.
Despite aligning with EU goals on short supply chains and rural resilience, they operate without a legal structure or public support. “We simply don’t have the human capacity to apply for or manage public funding,” says Hamon, who’s returned to his job as a nurse to support the initiative voluntarily.
This case exemplifies a recurring theme: community-led food system transformation exists—but is too often excluded from the very policies meant to support it.
Swiss microfarms: Outside the support framework
Benoît Girardin, founder of a Swiss microfarm and project manager for the Association Suisse des Microfermes, explains that up to 80% of microfarms in Switzerland receive no federal subsidies, either because they’re too small or lack the official credentials to be recognised as farms. Even his own, which qualifies, receives just 5% of annual turnover in subsidies.
Faced with this lack of recognition, Swiss microfarmers have created a dedicated microfarm label to build public trust, attract alternative funding, and advocate for a distinct status for these farms.
Despite their exclusion, microfarms play a vital role in local food systems, supplying consumers directly via on-farm shops, weekly markets, veg box schemes, and community networks.
Their strength lies in close customer relationships and the cultivation of diverse, often heritage varieties, which contribute to agrobiodiversity while offering standout taste and visual appeal.
As Girardin’s experience shows, these farms deliver clear public goods, yet remain outside the frameworks meant to support local food provisioning across Europe
Manger Demain: Leveraging regional mechanisms to prioritise local & agroecological food in Wallonia
In Wallonia, the Manger Demain initiative demonstrates how public food procurement can be reoriented to favor local and sustainable sourcing.
Through the “Coup de Pouce – Du Local dans mon assiette” subsidy, canteens receive up to 70% reimbursement for purchasing local and organic food. Regional producer cooperatives help smallholders meet institutional demand.
While EU procurement law remains restrictive, Simon Lechat explains that Manger Demain is advocating both at EU and Belgian levels to introduce minimum sustainability criteria and legal recognition of short supply chains.
What’s next?
The EU’s dominant funding and policy frameworks continue to favour larger-scale, industrial production.
With the CAP at risk of being absorbed into a generic “EU cash pot,” and the future of Pillar 2 funding looking bleak, now is the time for Member States and local authorities to step up.
Whether through procurement reform, subsidy reorientation, or legal recognition of short supply chains, the tools exist.
Local provisioning must move from the periphery to the centre of agricultural and food system strategy. This means targeted funding, supportive infrastructure, and legal mechanisms that explicitly prioritise small-scale, local, and agroecological producers.
More
Letter From The Farm | Neighbours, Not Numbers: How Local Feeds Us All
Rural Europe Takes Action – Food System Lessons from Marburg
Letter From The Farm | How a Young Lithuanian Farmer Blends Science, Soil & Community
Gérard Choplin Obituary – Farewell to a Pioneer of the EU Peasant Movement
A Not So Common Agricultural Policy and A Mega MF(F)ing Fund – What’s Cooking in the New CAP?
The Rise of a New Grain Alliance – Germany’s Free Bakers Sow the Seeds of Change
The Rise of a New Grain Alliance – Germany’s Free Bakers Sow the Seeds of Change
The EU’s Public Plate – An Opportunity for Food System Transformation
