Agriculture and fisheries: EU Publications

The Agriculture and Fisheries Council adopts legislation in a number of areas relating to the production of food, rural development and the management of fisheries.

This page gives an overview of the latest and upcoming meetings, press releases and policies related to the work of the Council and the European Council in the area of agriculture.

This page gives an overview of the latest and upcoming meetings, press releases and policies related to the work of the Council and the European Council in the area of fisheries.

Press releases and statements on Agriculture and Fisheries.

Agriculture monitoring, and in particular food security, requires near real time information on crop growing conditions for early detection of possible production deficits. Anomaly maps and time profiles of remote sensing derived indicators related to crops and rangelands conditions can be accessed online thanks to a rapidly growing number of web based portals. With the ASAP system (Anomaly hot Spots of Agricultural Production) we propose a two-step analysis to provide timely warning of agricultural production deficits in water-limited agricultural systems worldwide every month.

This Medium-term Outlook report has been drawn up considering the main drivers expected to affect the future of EU agriculture until 2035. These drivers include climate change, consumer demand, and the evolving farming sector structure.

Successfully managing the green and digital transitions is a crucial factor that could increase the resilience and strategic autonomy of the EU and shape its future. This foresight exercise aims to explore the interplay between digital transition, policies and the resilience of the agricultural sector and rural areas, against the backdrop of potential disruptive and transformative changes.

The study on funding for EU rural areas examines the contribution of the CAP 2014-2022 in addressing the needs and actions outlined under the Long-term vision for the EU’s rural areas (LTVRA).

This publication provides an update on the European Commission’s Food 2030 initiative and is meant to guide future research and innovation policy reflections related to Horizon Europe, the farm-to-fork strategy, the European Green Deal and beyond. The report sets out 11 pathways for action where research and innovation can concretely deliver co-benefits related to nutrition, climate, circularity and communities, at multiple levels.

The study aims to provide with an overview of the challenges faced by the agricultural sector regarding the evolution of climate extreme events in the European Union. The study highlights existing solutions to help farmers mitigate the effects of extreme weather events and recover from climate-related disasters. Finally, it analyses existing policy instruments supporting these solutions

The objective of the guidance document is to provide support to Member States in updating information and enhancing the ambition of the policies and measures planned and implemented for climate, energy and environmental purposes, in the land-use, forestry and agriculture sectors, also referred to as the land sector.

Agriculture, forestry and fi shery statistics provides a selection of recent, topical data. Information is presented for the European Union (EU) and its Member States, and is supplemented (when available) with data for the United Kingdom, EFTA members, candidate countries to the EU and potential candidates.

The aim of this report is to provide insights into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on operators in the agri-food supply chain in the European Union (EU). The report provides evidence of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the agri-food chain, both from the detailed perspective of individual operators active in the chain and the more global perspective of umbrella organisations representing the collective interests of these operators.

This report provides a medium-term outlook for major EU agricultural markets and agricultural income to 2030. It is based on a set of coherent macroeconomic assumptions deemed most plausible at the time of the analysis, including the continuation of current agricultural and trade policies. The analysis relies on information available at the end of September 2019 for agricultural production and on an agro-economic model used by the European Commission.

Since 2007, the European Commission has undertaken frequent Eurobarometer surveys on the subject of EU citizens, agriculture and the CAP.

The aim of this study is to explore the possible implications of the Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F) for agriculture and the CAP and, as a result, on the legislative works of the AGRI Committee over the 2020 - 2023 period.

The June 2018 CAP proposals are only marginally consistent with the ambitions of the Green Deal. This is also the case of the regulation revisions being adopted by either the Council or the European Parliament in October 2020. Making EU agriculture consistent with the Green Deal would require a whole food chain policy that encompasses more stringent instruments on the supply side and extensive changes in eating patterns.

In the first half of 2020, the CoR designed and launched a consultation on ‘Evaluation of the CAP impact on territorial development of rural areas’. Part 1 of this report summarises the results of the consultation which took the form of an online questionnaire and, overall, involved more than 200 stakeholders to different degrees. Conclusions and policy pointers for the future are drawn in Part 2.

This study explores how a widespread adoption of carbon farming in the EU can be triggered, with a particular focus on result-based carbon farming payments. The project reviewed existing international and EU payment schemes that reward carbon sequestration, reduced or avoided emissions in agriculture.

Analysing stylised scenarios with economic modelling tools reveals complex relations, incentives and trade-offs of the different policy instruments, in particular regarding the environmental dimension. Marginal areas of the EU are most vulnerable to drastic policy changes.

This report summarises the results of a foresight study on the future of EU rural areas 2040. A set of four scenarios were developed in a participatory process with the European Network for Rural Development (ENRD) Thematic Group on the Long Term Rural Vision between September and December 2020. The scenarios describe possible alternative futures for rural areas in the EU, ranging from pronounced depopulation and land use specialisation to diversified and expanding rural areas.

The study represents the Commission’s commitment to address emerging challenges in the sector. This participatory study places fishers at its core, integrating their perspectives into the development of future scenarios and fisher profiles to inform strategic policymaking for a sustainable, competitive and resilient EU fishing sector, as part of the wider blue economy. It does not present policy proposals, which was never the intention, rather it serves to stimulate further the important debate on securing and giving a perspective on the future of EU fishers.

This handbook provides an illustrated overview of the main marine and freshwater species relevant to the EU fisheries and aquaculture sector. For each species, the handbook shows its main biological characteristics, whether it is caught, farmed or both, and by which Member States, along with some significant EU conservation measures. In addition, it indicates the name of the species in Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese and Swedish.

his publication includes: 1) a structural and economic overview of the EU fishing fleet in 2021 and trend analyses for the years 2013-2021 where possible (nowcasts for 2022 and 2023); a regional analysis of the EU fishing fleet by major sea basin, as well as, fleets operating in the EU Outermost Regions and in Other Fishing Regions; 3) a detailed structural and economic overview of each Member State fishing fleet, including qualitative economic performance assessments for 2021 and nowcasts for 2022 and 2023.

The sixth edition of the EU Blue Economy Report continues to analyse the scope and size of the Blue Economy in the European Union. Its main objective remains to provide support to policymakers and stakeholders in the quest for a sustainable development of oceans, coastal resources and, most notably, to the development and implementation of polices and initiatives under the European Green Deal in line with the new approach for a sustainable Blue Economy.

This study reviews current artificial intelligence (AI) systems legislation, the AI techniques definition proposed by the AI Act and main applications of AI methods in the fisheries sector with special focus on applications to enhance traceability of fishery products, fishing gear selectivity, good practices, and potential to help young people finding jobs. Finally, this study offers policy recommendations relevant to EU decision-making to achieve a better use of AI systems in the fisheries sector.

The United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union has brought significant uncertainty for the fisheries sector. Fisheries, and especially EU fishing rights in UK waters, played a prominent role in the recent negotiations on future EU-UK relations and ultimately became the final obstacle to reaching an agreement, being the very last point to be agreed.

Under the new common organisation of the markets (CMO) in fishery and aquaculture products (FAPs), consumers play a pivotal role. In order to support the appropriate implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the CMO, the European Commission – DG MARE launched a study aimed at surveying and analysing EU consumer attitudes and habits regarding FAPs.

This study examines the latest developments of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in the fields of fisheries management, Common Market Organisation (CMO) and its external dimension. It also discusses the potential challenges that the EU fisheries policy might be facing in the near future. The present research contains ten case studies and concludes with possible solutions and recommendations to address some of the sector's forthcoming challenges.

"The EU fish market" aims at providing an economic description of the whole European fisheries and aquaculture industry. It replies to questions such as what is produced/exported/imported, when and where, what is consumed, by whom and what are the main trends. A comparative analysis allows to assess the performance of fishery and aquaculture products in the EU market compared with other food products. In this report, value and price variations for periods longer than five years are analysed by deflating values using the GDP deflator (base=2015); for shorter periods, nominal value and price variations are analysed.

This analysis on the impact of COVID-19 on the performance of the EU-27 fishing fleet has been prepared based on the outcomes of the 2020 Annual Economic Report (AER) on the EU Fishing Fleet (STECF, 2020). Economic performance in 2020 is significantly driven by the combined effects of decline in demand and supply chain disruption resulting from the COVID-19 health crisis.

Marine biodiversity and habitat loss is an ongoing challenge for Europe’s seas. In this report, we examine how this challenge is addressed by key EU policies and spending programmes in parts of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. While a framework is in place to protect the marine environment, EU actions have not restored seas to good environmental status nor fishing to sustainable levels in all seas.

In May 2019, DG MARE and the JRC published its Blue economy Report. The main focus was on boosting a “blue” economy, the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, through entrepreneurship, investment, and research and innovation. In order to better understand and illustrate the new opportunities coming from the Blue economy, this report introduces the emergent sector of Blue biotechnology.

The Sustainability Criteria for a Blue Economy study proposes a framework for assessing sustainable outcomes across the blue economy sectors. The Blue Economy Sustainability Framework (BESF) is intended to help inform public policy and investment decisions. It consists of indicators to measure sustainability criteria which are both 'common' (can be applied to any of the blue economy sectors) and '(sub)sector-specific'.

Data on national and European agriculture and common agricultural policy (CAP), provided by the European Commission's agricultural and rural development department.

This source describes the fisheries and aquaculture sector in figures based mainly on data compiled by Eurostat but also on figures collected by the European Commission and the FAO.

The European Market Observatory for fisheries and aquaculture (EUMOFA) is a market intelligence tool on the European Union fisheries and aquaculture sector, developed by the European Commission. It aims to increase market transparency and efficiency, analyses EU markets dynamics, and supports business decisions and policy-making.

It provides access to data submitted by EU Member States to the European Commission under the provisions of the Data Collection Framework and relates with EU Aquaculture, Fish Processing Industry, Fisheries Dependent Information, Fleet Economic Performance, Mediterranean and Black Sea, Bio-economic modelling, EMFF context indicators and Evaluation of Effort Regimes

This newsletter is published by the European Commission's Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.

Find the current and past newsletters from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) of the European Parliament

The EIP-AGRI Service Point distributes the monthly newsletter on Agriculture & Innovation to subscribers. You will read more on the latest events, publications, networking possibilities regarding innovation in agriculture and forestry.