EURAF Submission to the EU Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) Consultation

Forestry and agroforestry have received very little support historically from the CAP, and in the new MFF the silos of funding and thinking between forestry and agriculture should be addressed. Below are ten of the reasons for much gerater integration of agriculture, forestry, environment, carbon and climate funding at regional level, with maximum subsidiarity for these regions, but balanced by an emphasis on open data with robust, frequent and harmonised reporting of results. Forests cover 40% of the EU land surface, yet they accounted for less than 1% of planned CAP Expenditure in the 2014-22 period 85kha of new agroforestry planting was planned by MS in the 2014-22 period but less than 5kha was achieved. Nine Member States have no plans for afforestation or agroforestation in their CAP 2023-28 budgets (AT, BE-W, EE, FI, FR, IE, FR, LU, SE) and 6 more plan to establish less than 400ha over the 6-year period (CY, ST, SL, MT, DE, BE-F). Many countries are withdrawing their forestry expenditure from the CAP (IE, NL, FI, SE, FR, DE) and do not provide forestry metrics to the Commission. The recent DGAGRI Strategic Dialogue and Vision documents make little mention of forestry or agroforestry. The new European Board on Agriculture and Food (EBAF) has no representation of forestry organisations amongst its 30 non governmental members. The majority of Joint Research Centre agricultural foresight studies fail to mention agroforestry or trees outside forests. The EU will collectively miss its 2030 LULUCF carbon sequestration of -310 Mt Co2 by around 30-40 Mt CO2, because of increasing pressures on forests and stable or rising emissions from agriculture. The draft Forest Monitoring Strategy does not mention Trees outside Forests despite the fact that the crown area of these trees, in some countries, can be as much as 30% of the total tree cover. There are around 93 Mha of cropland and agricultural land in the EU-27 with no tree cover, and these hectares are mainly on mineral soils where tree planting would have the biggest benefit.