WWF Spain, SEO/BirdLife Spain, Ecologistas en Acción and the Spanish Society of Organic Agriculture (SEAE) have launched an online campaign enabling citizens to address their Spanish deputies in the EU.
9 days before the decisive vote of the European Parliament on the reform of the CAP, citizens are being asked to send messages to their European deputies at the European Parliament (MEPs) asking them to say YES to a real, green and fair reform that promotes sustainable agriculture, supports farmers and rural employment and protects the environment.
Spanish agriculture still has a big social and environmental value and could benefit significantly from a new CAP that supports systems that actually produce public goods. The NGOs are therefore underlining the urgency to act now to prevent further environmental degradation as a result of poor farming practices.
In this regard, they remind us that 92% of the pollution and over-exploitation of the European rivers, lakes and aquifers derives from intensive agriculture. In addition, 300 million birds linked to the farming environment have disappeared since 1980. Not to mention the social issues, linked with the loss of 3.7 million agricultural jobs during the last decade in the EU that the current CAP has not prevented.
For the Spanish NGOs, the new CAP should ensure that all farmers receiving direct payments should comply with good agricultural practices that protect the natural resources and the biodiversity (the so-called “greening”). They are also calling for a rejection of the illegal double subsidies proposed by the Agriculture Committee of the EU Parliament, as it would mean farmers would be paid twice for the same thing. The third condition to be met by the new CAP is maintaining the requirement that farmers who comply with the EU environmental legislation will receive aid. And finally, it is essential that the CAP reform will support systems of high natural value, represented by extensive animal farming and organic production.
The four NGOs are among the 80 Spanish organisations that supported the open letter signed by 270 european organisations for a better CAP reform
The campaign is also running in France, Germany, Italy and Poland. Sign the cyberaction NOW on http://tinyurl.com/reformaPAC
