Farmers' strikes are sweeping across Europe. It is clear that the design of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is flawed, and that innovative tools and mechanisms need to be developed to better reflect current needs and to make quicker and better decisions. On January 30 – February 1, 2024, a team of researchers and practitioners gathered at the GAIA EPICHEIREIN agribusiness innovation incubator in Piraeus (Greece) to further analyze the current gaps in the design, implementation, and monitoring of the CAP and to explore, through a collaborative process, the best innovative solutions. This is the next step of the Horizon Europe project "Tools4CAP - A toolbox of innovative tools to enable effective management of the CAP to achieve EU objectives", initiated by the European Commission.
The first Tools4CAP phase has already been completed. An inventory of the tools and instruments used to design, implement, and monitor the CAP Strategic Plans has been carried out. A collection of the main sources of documents for the preparation of CAP Strategic Plans in the Member States has already been developed and a comparative analysis of these documents has been carried out, followed by the refined conceptualization of the main tools used in previous CAP Strategic Plans design and monitoring stages. In-depth interviews have already been carried out in the Member States and thematic focus groups have been organized for the first phase to identify the most pressing practical problems encountered by the staff of the responsible authorities in the preparation and implementation of the CAP Strategic Plans. The initial synthesis material is now available on the project website www.tools4cap.eu.
In the next phases of the project, the most promising and new tools for CAP formulation and implementation will be selected and developed, based on the results of the studies already carried out, and training will be provided for their use in Member States.
Tools4CAP project (2023-2026) is implemented by a consortium of 14 partners (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain) and 7 associated entities (Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia). The project is coordinated by ECORYS (Belgium). The researchers from the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences Institute of Economics and Rural Development take part in the project as an associated partner of the European Rural Development Network representatives.
The ambition of the project is to provide decision-makers with suitable tools for a more evidence-based policy design.
Specific Tools4CAP objectives are:
1. Provide a shared knowledge base and an evaluation of methods and tools used for the design and implementation of the SP.
2. Identify and adapt innovative methods and tools.
3. Empower end users to adopt innovative solutions.
4. Establish a replication lab supporting the practical demonstration and uptake of innovative solutions.
5. Set up a capacity-building hub to transfer capabilities to end users.
Project implementation team in Lithuania:
Dr. Živilė Gedminaitė-Raudonė, zivile.gedminaite@ekvi.lt
Dr. Rita Lankauskienė, rita.lankauskiene@ekvi.lt
Dr. Rasa Melnikienė, rasa.melnikiene@ekvi.lt
Dr. Vitalija Simonaitytė, vitalija.simonaityte@ekvi.lt
More information on project website: https://www.tools4cap.eu/