Does our agricultural policy succeed in what it aims for ?

Abstract

In my thesis I want to investigate if the actual Agriculture Policy delivers what it should deliver. To do that I will describe how the Common Agriculture Policy has been put in place by the EU and which objectives have been determined over time. How does it work in practise? How have these objectives been translated to both our Belgian and EU agriculture policy and agriculture landscape? Which criteria can be best defined in order to determine whether these objectives have led to the desired results? It’s as well my intention to create a clear and realistic picture of our agricultural landscape, how it looks like, how did it evaluate over time, which trends can be spotted, … and finally I we look ahead into the future and look at some possible improvements. In the course of the thesis, depending on the subject matter and relevance, I will look at and discuss a number of issues and topics from either a Belgian, Flemish and/or EU context. This has to do, on the one hand, with the fact that it is not always easy to find relevant data on the individual different policy levels and, on the other hand, depending on the subject, it is relevant to look at matters at European, Flemish or Belgian level (e.g. climate change does not stop at our borders). At the Flemish level, the Agriculture Decree does not contain any anchored general objectives or cross-compliance that give direction to Flemish agricultural policy. As the Flemish agricultural policy to a large extent derives from the European agricultural policy and contributes to the implementation of the regulations that give shape to it, we start from the fact that the aim of the Flemish agricultural policy consists to a large extent in the implementation of the objectives of the European agricultural policy in the Flemish context.