This study proposes a monitoring framework for European agriculture within the Safe and Just Operating Space (SJOS) concept, integrating environmental thresholds, socio-economic considerations, and the objectives outlined in European Union (EU) policy frameworks. A thorough review of EU policies, including the European Green Deal (EGD), the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and related strategies, informed the adaptation of global SJOS concepts defined for the Planet and Humanity to the specific requirements of the EU agricultural sector. This downscaling to the regional contexts of the EU and the disaggregation to agricultural processes was central to ensuring the framework’s relevance and precision. The methodology identified over 30 indicator domains across 12 thematic areas, aligning global SJOS principles with EU policy targets. These indicators were refined through collaboration with modelling teams and external consultations, ensuring feasibility for use in existing simulation models. Workshops with experts and stakeholders revealed critical gaps, such as in biodiversity and animal welfare, highlighting areas for further model development. The framework enables projections of EU agriculture’s status relative to SJOS across various future scenarios, helping to analyse interdependencies, trade-offs, and synergies among objectives and indicators. The study emphasizes the importance of aligning scientific benchmarks with EU policy targets, including CAP and EGD objectives, while addressing challenges in data integration and interdisciplinary modelling.

Chemical inputs used in agriculture raise environmental and public health concerns. This article evaluates three policy instruments designed to reduce the use of mineral fertilizers and synthetic pesticides in the French fruit and vegetable sector: a tax on these inputs, subsidies for organic production, and subsidies for organic consumption. The results reveal marked contrasts. Taxation reduces the intensity of chemical input use but has limited effects on the share of organic area, whereas subsidies lead to substantial shifts toward organic farming. Biodiversity outcomes depend on the shape of the relationship between chemical input use and biodiversity: taxation performs best under a concave form, while production subsidies dominate under a convex form. Regarding health, consumption subsidies consistently improve outcomes, whereas taxation and production subsidies are beneficial only when organic products pose lower relative risks than conventional ones. Budgetary costs are highest for consumption subsidies, moderate for production subsidies, and lowest for taxation. Social cost rankings depend on the level of ambition concerning biodiversity and health objectives, the relative health risks of both product types, and the curvature of the chemical input–biodiversity function.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the agricultural research agenda are evolving at the same time. Although the past offers several examples of how research has influenced the CAP in terms of both objectives (progressive inclusion of environmental issues) and instruments (decoupling of income support measures, inefficiency of the 'greening' measure of the 2014-2020 CAP), assessing the impacts of agricultural research on the CAP is difficult for many reasons. Such an assessment requires a clear picture of agricultural research programmes, themes and results. It also calls for a robust analytical framework linking research programmes to CAP objectives and instruments in a context where both evolve simultaneously, are influenced by many other determinants, and vary over time depending on the political orientation of governments. Furthermore, European agriculture is influenced by many public policies other than the CAP, at both European Union and Member State level. Research and innovation efforts must ultimately be assessed according to their impacts not on the CAP but on agriculture, food and rural development in a context where assessment criteria must cover all sustainability dimensions, including resilience aspects. We conclude by emphasizing the need for both policy-makers and researchers to recognise explicitly that not all policy objectives are mutually compatible. La Politique agricole commune (PAC) et les programmes de recherche en agriculture & eacute;voluent simultan & eacute;ment. Bien que le pass & eacute; offre de nombreux exemples de l'influence de la recherche sur la PAC, tant en termes d'objectifs (int & eacute;gration progressive des questions environnementales) que d'instruments (d & eacute;couplage des mesures de soutien au revenu, inefficacit & eacute; de la mesure de 'verdissement' de la PAC 2014-2020), & eacute;valuer l'impact de la recherche agricole sur la PAC est difficile pour de nombreuses raisons. Une telle & eacute;valuation requiert une vision claire des programmes, des th & eacute;matiques et des r & eacute;sultats de la recherche agricole. Elle exige aussi un cadre d'analyse robuste reliant les programmes de recherche aux objectifs et aux instruments de la PAC, dans un contexte o & ugrave; ces deux & eacute;l & eacute;ments & eacute;voluent simultan & eacute;ment, sont influenc & eacute;s par de nombreux autres d & eacute;terminants, et varient au fil du temps en fonction des orientations politiques des gouvernements. Par ailleurs, l'agriculture europ & eacute;enne est influenc & eacute;e par de nombreuses autres politiques publiques que la PAC, tant au niveau de l'Union europ & eacute;enne que des & Eacute;tats membres. Les efforts de recherche et d'innovation doivent in fine & ecirc;tre & eacute;valu & eacute;s en fonction de leurs impacts non pas sur la PAC, mais sur l'agriculture, l'alimentation et le d & eacute;veloppement rural, dans un contexte o & ugrave; les crit & egrave;res d'& eacute;valuation doivent couvrir toutes les dimensions de la durabilit & eacute;, y compris les aspects de r & eacute;silience. Nous concluons en soulignant la n & eacute;cessit & eacute; pour & agrave; la fois les d & eacute;cideurs politiques et les chercheurs de reconna & icirc;tre explicitement que tous les objectifs des politiques ne sont pas compatibles. Die Gemeinsame Agrarpolitik (GAP) und die Agrarforschungsagenda entwickeln sich parallel. In der Vergangenheit gab es mehrere Beispiele daf & uuml;r, wie die Forschung die GAP sowohl in Bezug auf die Ziele (schrittweise Einbeziehung von Umweltfragen) als auch auf die Instrumente (Entkopplung der Ma ss nahmen zur Einkommensunterst & uuml;tzung, Ineffizienz der ,Greening'Ma ss nahmen der GAP 2014-2020) beeinflusst hat. Dennoch ist es aus vielen Gr & uuml;nden schwierig, die Auswirkungen der Agrarforschung auf die GAP zu bewerten. Dies erfordert ein klares Bild der Agrarforschungsprogramme, -themen und -ergebnisse. Ein solider analytischer Rahmen ist n & ouml;tig, der die Forschungsprogramme mit den Zielen und Instrumenten der GAP in einem Kontext verbindet - in dem sich beide gleichzeitig entwickeln, von vielen anderen Faktoren beeinflusst werden und sich im Laufe der Zeit je nach politischer Ausrichtung der Regierungen & auml;ndern. Dar & uuml;ber hinaus wird die europ & auml;ische Landwirtschaft sowohl auf Ebene der Europ & auml;ischen Union (EU) als auch auf Ebene der Mitgliedstaaten von vielen anderen & ouml;ffentlichen Ma ss nahmen beeinflusst. Forschungs- und Innovationsanstrengungen m & uuml;ssen letztlich nicht nach ihren Auswirkungen auf die GAP, sondern auf die Landwirtschaft, die Ern & auml;hrung und die Entwicklung des l & auml;ndlichen Raums bewertet werden, und zwar in einem Kontext, in dem die Bewertungskriterien alle Nachhaltigkeitsdimensionen, einschlie ss lich der Resilienzaspekte, abdecken m & uuml;ssen. Abschlie ss end werden die Priorit & auml;ten f & uuml;r die Verbesserung des Agrarforschungs- und Innovationssystems in der EU aufgezeigt.

Les systèmes agricoles et alimentaires européens ont un impact négatif sur le climat et la biodiversité, et les régimes alimentaires, trop déséquilibrés, ont des effets délétères sur la santé. Le Pacte vert européen adresse ces enjeux dans le cadre d’une approche holistique. En s’appuyant sur un modèle original d’équilibre partiel, nous montrons que l’amélioration substantielle des performances climatiques, environnementales et de santé des systèmes agroalimentaires passe par la mobilisation conjointe des trois leviers agroalimentaires principaux du Pacte vert, soit 1) l’adoption à large échelle de pratiques agroécologiques, 2) la réduction des pertes et gaspillages alimentaires, et 3) la transition vers des régimes alimentaires moins riches en produits d’origine animale. Les principaux points de tension que ces trois leviers induisent et les arbitrages politiques qui en découlent sont discutés. Ceux-ci ont trait 1) aux conditions d’adoption des pratiques agroécologiques, 2) aux effets du Pacte vert sur les importations agroalimentaires européennes, 3) aux modifications des préférences et des comportements des consommateurs qui les amèneraient à modifier substantiellement leurs consommations, et enfin 4) aux enjeux pour l’élevage dans un contexte de forte baisse de la consommation et donc de la production de produits animaux.

This paper assesses the environmental ambition of 2023-2027 Common Agricultural Policy in France. Since conditionality and agri-environment-climate measures are only marginally improved relative to the previous period, attention is focused on the new environmental instrument of the eco-scheme that in France targets the whole farm. Results suggest low environmental progress since almost all French farms would reach the standard level of the eco-scheme by one of the three access paths with unchanged farming practices, and 85% of them would reach the superior level. The percentage of farms at the superior level would be lower for farms specialized in annual crops than for cattle farms. We then show that the payment difference of 20 per hectare between the standard and superior level is probably insufficient for farms specialized in cereals, oilseeds and protein crops to offset the additional cost of the change in farm practices required to move from the standard to the superior level.

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) direct aids are playing an essential role in supporting the income of many European farmers. This situation, the result of political choices made during successive reforms of the policy since 1992, raises the question of the appropriateness of the CAP as a means of supporting agricultural income. After a brief review of the contribution of direct payments to farm income in different European member states, we examine the effectiveness of decoupled direct aids, which constitute the bulk of direct payments, in supporting farm income. We raise the question of the legitimacy of the CAP to support farm income given that the measurement of the latter is a complex issue and that many authors consider that the CAP’s decoupled payments have no real justification.

A new 5-year Common Agricultural Policy has been in place since January 2023. Like its predecessors, this new policy will fail to deliver significant climatic and environmental benefits. We show how the Green Architecture of the policy relying on the three instruments of conditionality, eco-schemes, and agri-environment and climate measures could have been used more consistently and effectively. Our proposals are based on core principles of public economics and fiscal federalism as well as on research results in agronomy and ecology. Conditionality criteria are the minimal requirements that every agricultural producer must meet. Farmers should be rewarded for efforts that go beyond these basic requirements through eco-schemes for global public goods complemented by agri-environment and climate measures centred on local public goods. Eco-schemes should cover the whole agricultural area by targeting permanent grasslands, crop diversification, and green cover and non-productive agro-ecological infrastructures. We discuss trade-offs that our proposals could generate.

The European Green Deal aims notably to achieve a fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly food system in the European Union. We develop a partial equilibrium economic model to assess the market and non-market impacts of the three main levers of the Green Deal targeting the food chain: reducing the use of chemical inputs in agriculture, decreasing post-harvest losses, and shifting toward healthier average diets containing lower quantities of animal-based products. Substantially improving the climate, biodiversity, and nutrition performance of the European food system requires jointly using the three levers. This allows a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of food consumption and a 40–50% decrease in biodiversity damage. Consumers win economically thanks to lower food expenditures. Livestock producers lose through quantity and price declines. Impacts on revenues of food/feed field crop producers are positive only when the increase in food consumption products outweighs the decrease in feed consumption.

La future PAC affiche une plus grande ambition climatique et environnementale recherchée via notamment le nouvel instrument de l'éco-régime du premier pilier. Cet article analyse les conditions d'accès des agriculteurs à l'éco-régime français par la voie dite de la certification environnementale. Les résultats mettent en lumière le faible niveau d'ambition climatique et environnementale de la voie puisque la quasi-totalité des exploitations agricoles auraient accès au premier niveau, et plus d'un tiers au niveau supérieur, sans aucune modification de leurs pratiques actuelles. Le référentiel de la certification HVE est en cours de révision. L'analyse est basée sur la version de ce référentiel en vigueur au 1er octobre 2022.

This paper analyses to what extent it would be possible to ensure food availability to the world population by 2050 with two objectives: healthy diets and no farmland expansion. Assumptions were made to project exogenous demand and supply variables. Climate change impacts on crop yields, grazing use intensities and maximum cultivable areas were taken into account. Cropland and pastureland needs were then estimated for 21 regions using a global biomass balance model. Simulation results established for two sets of crop yield projections (‘moderate’ versus ‘high’ growth) show that several regions (India, Rest of Asia, Near- and Middle-East countries and North Africa, as well as West Africa in the case of ‘moderate’ yield growth) would be constrained by their maximum cultivable areas with no deforestation. Our scenarios would be technically infeasible because of additional pastureland needs notably in sub-Saharan Africa. As a consequence, we analyse to what extent additional levers could reduce pastureland needs in sub-Saharan Africa.

Cattle are the world’s largest consumers of plant biomass. Digestion of this biomass by ruminants generates high methane emissions that affect global warming. In the last decades, the specialisation of cattle breeds and livestock systems towards either milk or meat has increased the milk production of dairy cows and the carcass weight of slaughtered cattle. At the animal level and farm level, improved animal performance decreases feed use and greenhouse gas emissions per kg of milk or carcass weight, mainly through a dilution of maintenance requirements per unit of product. However, increasing milk production per dairy cow reduces meat production from the dairy sector, as there are fewer dairy cows. More beef cows are then required if one wants to maintain the same meat production level at country scale. Meat produced from the dairy herd has a better feed efficiency (less feed required per kg of carcass weight) and emits less methane than the meat produced by the cow-calf systems, because the intake of lactating cows is largely for milk production and marginally for meat, whereas the intake of beef cows is entirely for meat. Consequently, the benefits of breed specialisation assessed at the animal level and farm level may not hold when milk and meat productions are considered together. Any change in the milk-to-meat production ratio at the country level affects the numbers of beef cows required to produce meat. At the world scale, a broad diversity in feed efficiencies of cattle products is observed. Where both productions of milk per dairy cow and meat per head of cattle are low, the relationship between milk and meat efficiencies is positive. Improved management practices (feed, reproduction, health) increase the feed efficiency of both products. Where milk and meat productivities are high, a trade-off between feed efficiencies of milk and meat can be observed in relation to the share of meat produced in either the dairy sector or the beef sector. As a result, in developing countries, increasing productivities of both dairy and beef cattle herds will increase milk and meat efficiencies, reduce land use and decrease methane emissions. In other regions of the world, increasing meat production from young animals produced by dairy cows is probably a better option to reduce feed use for an unchanged milk-to-meat production ratio.

The European Union has a high demand for plant proteins for food and feed. Its self-sufficiency rate is about 5% for soya crude proteins. The European Union and its Member States have launched initiatives for reducing soya imports that come mainly from South America and promoting domestic production of protein-rich crops. In the future, climate suitability for soybean cultivation is likely to increase in oceanic and continental Europe. The recent AE2050 study (INRAE. 2020. Role of European agriculture in world trade by 2050: Balancing climate change and global food security issues. Summary report of the study. INRAE (France), 12 p; Tibi A, Forslund A, Debaeke P, et al. 2020. Place des agricultures européennes dans le monde à l’horizon 2050 : entre enjeux climatiques et défis de la sécurité alimentaire. Rapport de synthèse de l’étude. INRAE (France), 159 p + Annexes) concluded that, in some parts of Europe (defined here as the European Union-27 plus other Balkan countries, Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom), cropland requirements in 2050 may be lower than “2010” cropland areas given possible changes in European food demand (related to glooming demographic growth and under the assumption of healthy diets) and in crop yields (influenced by technological developments and climate change). In this study, we examine to what extent this “cropland surplus” could be used to increase soybean production in Europe and reduce the dependency ratio on protein imports. Only in the case of a Healthy Diets scenario (less meat consumption, inducing less animals fed with cakes), substantial soybean acreages could be envisaged to reduce the European reliance on imports. In addition to the surplus allowed by increasing yields, land surplus was also made available by the reduction of livestock production and its grain feed requirements. The best-case scenario, combining healthy diets and trend-based yield growth, would reduce European imports to only 15% of its total domestic requirements versus 45% for the Trend-based Diets scenario. This can be compared to a dependency rate of 51% in our base year “2010”, and of 53%–54% for the two 2050 scenarios without growing soybean on cropland surplus. If the range of these quite optimistic estimations of surplus land dedicated to soybean was reduced to more plausible levels (limited to 10% of annual field cropland in 2050) and considering current soybean yield levels (“2019” instead of “2010”), the decrease in Europe’s oil cake imports levels would be lower. However, its dependency rate could still be reduced from 54% to 46% in the Trend-based Diets scenario, and from 53% to 38% in the Healthy Diets scenario. One important conclusion is that adopting healthy diets would allow a significant reduction of imports of soybean cakes from abroad with expected environmental benefits in Europe and overseas. On the supply side, challenges for a higher self-sufficiency rate of proteins in Europe resulting from the development of soybean domestic production will come from both available and suitable crop areas, attainable yields and relative profitability.

Abstract The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has not halted farmland biodiversity loss. The CAP post‐2023 has a new ‘‘Green Architecture,’’ including the new ‘‘Eco‐scheme’’ instrument. How can this new Green Architecture help tackle the biodiversity crisis? Through 13 workshops and an online survey, over 300 experts from 23 European Member States addressed this question. From experts’ contributions, key principles for success include preserving and restoring (semi)natural elements and extensive grasslands; improving spatial planning and landscape‐scale implementation, including through collective actions; implementing result‐based approaches; and improved knowledge exchange. To maximize the effectiveness of Eco‐scheme for biodiversity, experts highlighted the need to prioritize evidence‐based actions, allocate a sufficient budget for biodiversity, and incentivize management improvements through higher payment levels. Additionally, stronger coherence is needed among CAP instruments. For effective CAP implementation, the European Commission and the Member States should expand investments in biodiversity monitoring, knowledge transfer, and capacity‐building within relevant institutions. The remaining risks in the CAP's ability to reverse the loss of farmland biodiversity still require better design, closer monitoring, greater transparency, and better engagement with farmers. Additionally, greater involvement of scientists is needed to guide the CAP toward restoring farmland biodiversity while accounting for synergies and trade‐offs with other objectives.

Dans le monde entier, les productions animales sont aujourd’hui confrontées à des défis majeurs en matière de durabilité. Ces derniers sont exacerbés dans l'Union européenne (UE) où les questions relatives au réchauffement climatique, à l’environnement, à la santé humaine et au bien-être animal suscitent de nombreux débats. À côté des impacts négatifs, les productions animales peuvent également présenter des avantages sur les plans économique, territorial et nutritionnel. Certains systèmes d'élevage, notamment les systèmes herbagers, peuvent également avoir des effets positifs sur le climat et l'environnement. Les productions animales sont fortement régulées dans l'UE, alors que la consommation de produits animaux ne l'est pas ou très peu. Bon nombre des effets négatifs et positifs sont des biens publics, mal pris en compte par les acteurs privés et les marchés. Il existe donc une légitimité et une marge de manœuvre pour les politiques publiques visant à réduire les dommages et à augmenter les avantages de la production et de la consommation de produits animaux. La dernière partie de l'article explique comment cet objectif pourrait être atteint dans l'UE par le biais d'une Politique Agricole Commune (PAC) profondément révisée et basée sur les principes de l'économie publique.