The new CAP 2023-2027 officially enters into force on January 1, there are 35 billion euros on the table for five years and there are hundreds of thousands of Italian farmers on the tapes ready to present their requests. How many? According to Coldiretti, which manages an efficient network of agricultural assistance centres, in 2105 the recipients of the CAP were 1.1 million, compared to about 730 thousand last year. To date, it is less clear how much each of them will receive with the new system for recalculating contributions: in fact, some risk losing up to a thousand euros per hectare. And it is not even certain that all the resources will reach farmers’ pockets as early as October: with the old CAP, in autumn the farmers received 85% of the total sums owed to them, now with the new one there is the risk of immediately taking only the 48%. But let’s go in order.
Time for questions
Applications, as always, must be submitted every year by May 15, except for possible one-month extensions. They must be delivered to the paying agencies: to the Region, if it has a special desk, or directly to Agea. Practices can also be presented through a Caa, i.e. an agricultural assistance centre. The good thing is that with the same application you can request both basic contributions and funding for specific chapters, such as those that the new CAP reserves for young people (1 billion), digitization (2.2 billion) or organic (2 billion). The second good news is that the whole system is computerized and the national and regional platforms talk to each other. Much, however, still remains to be understood in the 70 pages of the regulation which only arrived at the State-Regions Conference after Christmas.
“Not all farmers can submit the application – explains Alessandro Apolito, head of the technical service of Coldiretti – those who would receive less than 300 euros of contributions per hectare, for example, have no right to request them”. In short, the first step is to have the figure calculated for you.
The redistribution of contributions
Compared to previous managements, the biggest novelty of this CAP is the way in which the income contributions of agricultural entrepreneurs will be distributed: they will no longer be linked to production, but will be quantified on the basis of sustainable behavior implemented. By 2027, every farmer will have to receive aid of no less than 80% of the national average and for this reason a redistribution of the sums will have to take place: today, in fact, Lombardy has an average of 600 euros of contributions per hectare, while Sardinia only 120.
How does this redistribution translate into practice? «Until 2022 – explains Apolito – direct contributions provided for a fixed basic payment, calculated on the basis of personal qualifications, plus an environmental component, the greening, which was the same for everyone. With the new CAP, on the other hand, the basic contributions will require minimum conditions of sustainability to be taken, while the part greening it no longer exists because it has been replaced by ecoschemi». The latter provide for a series of environmental commitments on the part of farmers: only those who demonstrate compliance with them will be able to receive contributions.