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Working the Landscape: terraces and dry-stone

walls between identity and values

Agricultural Value: Mountain Agriculture in the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

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Albiano - May 4, 2013

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Directive 268/75/CEE and sectoral

legislation

• Directive 268/75/CEE classifies the Autonomous Province of Trento as being a disadvantaged mountainous area.

• Ever since 1981 (Law 17/1981), and over the following decades (Law 14/92 and Law 4/2003), the legislator thought necessary to provide special measures aimed at promoting the economic development of disadvantaged mountainous areas.

With respects to such areas, Law 17/81 stated: “The Province implements a special aid regime for the agricultural sector, aimed at preserving agricultural activities, maintaining the natural environment intact, a pre-condition for a further consolidation and development of other economic activities, and for the recovery of marginal resources. Future political licensings of economic initiatives in the disadvantaged mountainous areas, shall depend on such initiatives’ likeliness to constitute an element of support - or, contrarily, of damage - for existing agricultural farms”

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Rural Development Plan 2007-2013

• Within the current RDP (Rural Development Plan), the Province has thought necessary to articulate a formal distinction between Disadvantaged Areas (Mountainous) and Valley Bottom Areas.

• A compensatory allowance is granted to farms located in Disadvantaged Areas. The allowance is intended to serve for guarateeing the presence of ana adequate number of farms all over the territory.

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CAP and Rural Development Plan 2014-2020

• The Planning Cycle 2014-2020 will bring further modifications to the Cohesion Policy and Rural Development Framework, both in terms of policies’ goals and overall planning architecture.

• The first change has to do with the system of integration between European Regional Policies (FEASR, FSE, FESR, FEAMP), its ultimate aim being that of aligning a comprehensive investment strategy to the goals of Europe 2020 Strategy.

• The CAP regulations’ semplification effort in which the EU has embarked, ultimately entails the definition of common rules between different allowance schemes (umbrella regulations) within the CAP (new horizontal regulation) Lo sforzo della semplificazione e dell’armonizzazione delle regole della PAC implica regole comuni fra i fondi (regolamento ombrello), and among direct subsidy and benefit system and rural development.

• Allowance-specific Strategic Communitarian Orientations (SCOs) will thus disappear., and so will National Strategic Plans (NSPs). They will be replaced by two general strategic documents (CSF – Common Strategic Framework, and the PC – Partnership Contract).

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The new context for Rural Development

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PSR - The soppression of the axes

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The Goals of Rural Development

1. Guarantee the competititveness of the Agricultural Sector.

2. To give a contribution to the environmental protection.

3. To promote environmentally compatible methods of agricultural production.Contribuire a uno sviluppo equilibrato delle aree rurali

These goals reflect those of the CAP, and are made explicit reference to by the “6 Priorities for the EU”

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EU’s priorities for Rural Development (1)

1. Increase the trasfer of knowledge and innovation in Agriculture, in the Forest Sector and in the Rural Areas (so called ‘Horizontal Priority’)

– Strengthen innovation and basic skills in rural areas.

– Strenghten the links between agriculture and the forest sector in the fields of research and innovation.

– Strengthen life-long learning in the fields of agriculture and forest maintenance.

2. Increase the competitiveness of every form of Agriculture, as well as agriculturarl farms’ economic sustainability

− Facilitate farms’ recovery processes

− Facilitate generational succession within the agricultural sector

3. Promote the organization of clusters and risk management in Agriculture

− Improve theorganization of farmersinto clusters

− Sustain risk management

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EU’s priorities for Rural Development (2)

4. Recover, preserve and improve those ecosystems dependent on

agricultural and forest maintenance activities – Recover and preserve biodiversity (including Nature 2000 and high-nature value

management systems), as well as landscapes conditions

– Improve water management

– Improve soil management

5. Promote an efficient resource management, favour the transition to a Low Carbon Economy with lower impact on climate change

- Increase irrigation water management efficiency

- Increase the Agricultural Sector’s energy consumption, especially with regard s to food products’ first transformationi

- To favour the use of renewable energy sources, of derived products, waste, and other roughagricultural materials

- Lower greenhouse gas and methan emissions in agriculture

- To favour the elimination of Carbon from agriculture and forests

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EU’s priorities for Rural Development (3)

6. To promote social inclusion, poverty

reduction, and the economic development of rural areas

– to guarantee the presence of an adequate

diversification between agricultural farms

– To guarantee the establishment of new farms and the creation of new jobs

– To boost local development in rural areas

– To increase access, use and quality of Its throughout rural areas

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Partnership Contract - Eleven Thematic Goals

• 1. To strengthen research, technologic development and innovation.

• 2. Grant access to new ICTs

• 3. Increase SME’s competitiveness.

• 4. Promote a transition towards a low-CO2 production economy

• 5. Favour an adaptation to climate change, prevention and risks management.

• 6. Safeguard the environment and promote efficient resource consumption strategies

• 7. Promote sustainable transport systems, eliminate malfunctions in the main network infrastructures

• 8. Increae Occupation and support free-movement of labour

• 9. Social inclusion and poverty reduction

• 10. Education, skills, and life-long learning

• 11. Institutional Capacity building and an efficient public administration

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Getting to know the territory

• Knowledge of an area is sine qua non condition to formulate and implement adequate local policies

• With the establishment of APPAG (Provincial Agency for Payments) the agricultural sector has achieved a high degree of autonomy from the SIAN (National Information System). This made it possible for the sector to establish its own information system (SIAP), one that allows a superior availability of territorial datas.

• On the basis of terrains’ digital models, the system has been able to make greater use of information coming from single parcels of land. This information are mostly related to:

- Average inclination of the piece of land

- Average altitude of the piece of land

- Average exposition to the Sun

• Moreover, further information related to the location of terraces and vinyards, as well as to their varietal composition, have also been made available.

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Thank you all for your attention