Common agricultural policy reform and its effects on sheep and goat market and rare breeds conservation

In June 2003, the EU approved a very important reform of the CAP that will strongly affect the entire European agriculture. This paper analyses the major issues related to the effects of the evolution of the Common Agricultural Policy on the sheep and goat sectors, and especially the possible direct and indirect effects of the last reform in terms of accelerating or decelerating the loss of biodiversity due to the extinction of breeds. In fact, the single farm payment, fully or partly decoupled from any production, will include from 50% to 100% of the present amount of aid paid to sheep and goat breeders, according to decisions to be taken by each Member State. These decisions could deeply affect breeders’ economic interests in continuing to breed sheep and goats or not. On the other hand, new regulations will also allow Member States to introduce supplementary premium in case of transhumance, and/or for preserving rare breeds, and/or for promoting high-quality food products which could be obtained from these breeds. These policy tools, together with the increased amount of money available for rural development could balance, at least theoretically, negative effects due to the application of decoupled aid. On the other hand, previous experiences show that these tools have not been used with efficacy in order to preserve endangered breeds. Therefore, new attention and new procedure are suggested in order to overcome these limitation and to improve in situ preservation of rare breeds. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.