European agriculture plays a vital role in society providing a stable food supply, produced in a sustainable way at affordable prices for more than 500 million Europeans.

With a great contribution to the EU’s economy, Europe exports goods for more than €130 billion per year, provides jobs for 44 million people across the agri-food chain and help in keeping lively rural areas.

The Common Agricultural Policy CAP, a milestone of the European Union’s policy, has been supporting the development and modernization of farming across Europe since its creation.

In the last decades European agriculture has become incredibly productive because farmers have been ready to make use of the best available technology whether in the form of higher-yielding, disease-resistant crop varieties, improved farm management techniques or more efficient machinery.

Nonetheless, to keep pace and ensure farming remains competitive against a global agriculture the CAP also needs to evolve. The EU also has changed, new country members have joined diversifying the picture of farming in Europe even more. This means farm sizes greatly vary among EU states as well as the level of Precision Agriculture technology investments and the application of innovative techniques.

In view of the CAP post 2020, CEMA has been throwing different ideas on how to modernize and adapt this policy to farming current challenges related to:

  • reducing the environmental impact while preserving natural resources,
  • maintaining competitiveness and economic viability for all type of farmers and
  • ensuring productivity levels for European society.

To make sure the CAP evolve with the needs of farmers and the agri-food sector, the farm equipment industry advocates to:
- Consider Precision Agriculture as a promoter of sustainable productivity growth in agriculture
- Encourage the uptake of Precision Agriculture Technologies
- Support the access of all type of farmers to Precision Agriculture Technologies
- Ensure a notable budget shift to R&D funds to guarantee continuous and target agricultural research programmes
- Introduce Total Factor Productivity (TFP) to apply the principle “to grow more with less”