The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is grounded in the recognition that people, land, and society are deeply interlinked. But today, that connection is under strain. Farmers face mounting pressure from extreme weather, rising input costs and increasing regulatory complexity. Against this backdrop, the upcoming CAP reform is a pivotal moment, one that must deliver real outcomes to future-proof European agriculture.   To do that, policymakers should focus on three clear priorities: enabling co-investment between the public and private sectors; ensuring payments are simpler and rewarding farmers for what really matters; and equipping farmers with tailored support beyond payments. This is the foundation for a CAP that truly supports food security, climate action, and farmer livelihoods, while keeping food affordable for consumers.   By aligning around these priorities, the CAP can move beyond being just a rulebook for farmers and become a framework that brings together everyone involved in sustaining and shaping our food future, balancing agricultural progress with care for the environment and our communities. At PepsiCo, we see the impact of these policies up close, starting from the very first step of our value chain. Across the EU, we work with over 800 farmers to source key agricultural crops and ingredients, including potatoes, corn and oats. These ingredients are the backbone of iconic brands like Lay’s, Doritos, and Quaker, which rely on thriving farming communities and sustainable agricultural practices. Their success is our success. And so is their sustainability.  But I can also see that today’s farmers face an uncertain future. With the EU standing at a crossroads, we have to rethink how to support food security, respond to climate impacts and deliver more equitable outcomes for farmers, while keeping food affordable and accessible for consumers.   That’s why CAP reform matters now. Done right, the CAP can become a global model for a public-private partnership that drives meaningful and measurable progress across the full agri-food value chain.  On PepsiCo’s part, we remain committed to being a constructive partner in support of a more competitive, resilient and sustainable food system — based on regenerative agriculture.  This approach uses science-based farming practices that aim to restore ecosystems by improving soil health and fertility, reducing emissions, enhancing water quality and protecting biodiversity while also supporting farmer livelihoods. For example, in Jaén, southern Spain, we recently launched ‘Viva Oliva’ to support local olive growers, many of whom have been working in this historic trade for generations. Through this project, we’re providing hands-on training from agronomy experts so that farmers can protect the ecosystem more efficiently and conserve vital resources.   Crucially, these practices also create new opportunities, ensuring that farming can continue to be a viable option for the next generation. In 2024 we sourced 100 percent of the olive oil for our Alvalle gazpacho brand from Jaén, securing a high-quality local supply for Alvalle while strengthening the role of farmers in our supply shed.  > We’re investing in innovative techniques that bring life back to the land > because it is the right thing to do for our business, for the farmers we work > with and for the planet. Viva Oliva is just one of the many projects that’s helped us spread regenerative agriculture across a total of 3.5 million acres (approximately 1.4 million hectares) of farmland. Recently, we extended our target and are now aiming to reach 10 million acres (around 4 million hectares) globally by 2030.   We’re also taking action further upstream through partnerships with fertilizer companies like Yara, equipping farmers with precision tools to improve nutrient efficiency, increase yields and lower the carbon footprint of their crops. This collaboration supports approximately 1,000 farms across the EU and the UK that supply key ingredients for Lay’s and Walkers, covering around 128,000 hectares. By 2030 the partnership aims to reduce fertilizer production emissions by up to 80 percent and in-field fertilizer emissions by up to 20 percent, helping scale regenerative practices while supporting farmer productivity.  > Recently, we extended our regenerative agriculture target and are now aiming > to spread these practices across 10 million acres of farmland globally by > 2030. I know that we have the expertise and ambition to meet these goals, but we can’t do it alone. To make this a reality, we need EU policymakers to deliver a coherent and enabling regulatory framework that’s fit for purpose, based on three guiding principles.  Firstly, policymakers must match ambition with investment. Strong public funding is essential, but the CAP should be reimagined to enable co-investment through blended finance models, where public and private capital work together to accelerate impact. Private investment should be results driven, allowing trusted private-sector partners, who operate at size and scale, to co-design solutions with farmers.  Secondly, payments should be simpler and pay farmers for what really matters. This requires rewarding farmers not just for compliance but also for delivering real, measurable environmental benefits such as healthier soils, lower emissions, cleaner water, and richer biodiversity. Farming is unlike most other businesses, with income around 40 percent lower than non-agricultural income,1, which is why CAP incentives must reflect the true costs farmers face, including machinery upgrades and land-use shifts. And the system should incentivize progress over perfection — farmers who are already taking action should be compensated accordingly.  Thirdly, the CAP must recognize that farmers need support beyond payments. Investing in climate information systems, knowledge sharing networks, rural infrastructure and novel technologies will help accelerate and scale the implementation of new techniques — while ensuring profitability. Travelling across Europe to meet our teams on the ground, I see firsthand how local needs differ, so farmers should also be free to choose the solutions that are best suited to their region and crops to ensure policies are impactful.    > “Done right, the CAP can become a global model for a public-private > partnership that drives meaningful and measurable progress across the full > agrifood value chain. Archana Jagannathan And PepsiCo is committed to being part of that solution. Together with like-minded partners, we’re fully committed to growing food in a way that revitalizes the earth, supports farmer livelihoods, and feeds a growing population.  

The EU’s response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose so-called reciprocal tariffs on all of America’s trading partners may be less aggressive than expected, but it does show some creativity in its bid to hit the U.S. where it will hurt the most. According to an internal document seen by POLITICO, the Commission is considering slapping tariffs of up to 25 percent on a broad range of exports from the U.S. worth around €22.1 billion based on the EU’s 2024 imports. The list features run-of-the-mill agricultural and industrial commodities such as soybeans, meat, tobacco, iron, steel and aluminum — to hit the American sectors that rely most on transatlantic exports. Dig deeper, and it turns out the EU’s trade nerds have stirred some unaccustomed creativity into their expert knowledge of obscure customs codes, while channeling a helping of passive aggression to inflict pain on Trump’s base. EU countries are set to vote on the new duties on Wednesday, with no major opposition expected. Once they’ve approved the list (which is technically made up of multiple lists), the first set of tariffs on goods such as cranberries or orange juice, which the EU initially imposed in 2018 during the first Trump presidency but suspended in 2021, will take effect on April 15.  A 25 percent duty will then kick in from May 16 on a second batch of imported items such as steel, meat, white chocolate and polyethylene. Finally, a 25 percent duty on almonds and soybeans will take effect Dec. 1. (Leave it to the Commission to build some suspense.) Overall, EU duties are set to hit up to $13.5 billion worth of exports from red states, according to POLITICO’s analysis of 2024 trade data. Let’s start with the EU’s No. 1 target — soybeans, the most valuable item on the bloc’s hit list, a product whose economic and symbolic significance for the Republican Party’s heartlands cannot be overstated. The U.S. is the world’s second-largest soybean producer and exporter, and the EU tariffs would hit a sector already battered by China’s retaliatory measures, rising global competition and falling prices. That’s not all: 82.5 percent of American soybean exports to the EU come from Louisiana, the home state of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Unsurprisingly, U.S. soybean producers slammed Trump’s commercial belligerence last month, arguing that “tariffs are not something to be taken lightly” and urging the administration to “reconsider tariffs [against Canada, Mexico and China] and potential upcoming tariffs.” So far, however, the U.S. president has signaled that he was “not looking at” pausing the new tariffs. The EU is also targeting beef from Kansas and Nebraska, poultry from Louisiana, car parts from Michigan, cigarettes from Florida, and wood products from North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. While the Commission ended up dropping whiskey from the final draft after successful lobbying from France, Italy and Ireland, it did include other more niche items designed to cause the greatest pain to exporters in Republican states. These include (but are not limited to) ice cream from Arizona, handkerchiefs from South Carolina, electric blankets from Alabama, ties and bow ties from Florida (unless they’re made of silk, which Democratic California will be more than happy to provide), and washing machines from Wisconsin. Pasta from Florida and South Carolina will also face some tariff heat, though Italy will likely be delighted to fill the market gap. Finally, women’s negligées from Ohio and Kentucky, a fan favorite from the Commission’s first proposal, made the final cut; so did men’s undergarments, although they are mostly found in blue states. ZOOMING BACK The trade war unleashed by Trump comes with a hefty price for Washington, as Canada and China have responded to the U.S. president’s deluge of duties with their own counter tariffs. Overall, retaliatory measures imposed by China, Canada and the EU will hit nearly $90 billion of American exports. Beijing has mainly targeted U.S. produce, slapping a 15 percent duty on commodities like chicken, wheat and corn along with 10 percent on soybeans, meat, fruit and other farm exports. Canada, meanwhile, has imposed two sets of tariffs — 25 percent on a range of agrifood products, and another 25 percent on steel and aluminum products. For its part, Brussels has experimented with a carrot-and-stick approach to signal it won’t bow to Trump’s demands while leaving the door open to negotiations. On Monday the bloc offered a “zero-for-zero” tariff scheme on industrial goods covering cars, drugs, chemicals, plastics and machinery among other things.  Trump, however, said the offer fell short and urged EU countries to buy $350 billion worth of American energy products to make the trade deficit “disappear … in one week.” As a last resort, the bloc could wield its “trade bazooka” to hit U.S. services, which would take the trade war to a whole new level — something not all EU countries are ready to do just yet.

The newly created [aclp.eu] Agricultural Crop Licensing Platform (ACLP) simplifies access to patented traits for European plant breeders, enabling them to leverage the latest technologies and help farmers to meet the challenges of sustainable food production. Europeans rightly expect safe food at affordable prices. But this is getting harder and harder for European farmers to do. Consumer expectations regarding quality and price keep rising, while farmers face increasing pressure to adopt sustainable practices, for example, by reducing their carbon emissions and the impact agriculture has on soil and water. Across the EU, arable farmers are increasingly confronted with drought conditions while the amount of cultivatable land is shrinking. At the same time, the EU is making trade agreements with exporters of agricultural produce that are exposing European farming to ever greater competition. European agriculture cannot afford to be left behind as producers in other parts of the world have access to the latest agricultural technologies. If farmers have access to the best available seed varieties, as well as other innovations, they can tackle these competing challenges. EU policymakers are currently negotiating new rules for developing innovative plant varieties through new genomic techniques (NGTs). These techniques allow plant breeders to introduce highly desirable characteristics such as improved drought tolerance or pest resistance, helping plants cope with challenges like water shortages or maintaining yields, without increasing the use of crop protection products or fertilisers. These sought-after traits can be enhanced by speeding up traditional plant breeding techniques, which, until now, have required long-term work crossing varieties to develop desired traits. Plant breeding can focus, for example, on developing varieties with shorter stems, that are more resistant to heavy rain. It can also improve plants’ resistance to common diseases, such as rhizomania, a common disease affecting sugar beet crops. NGTs use very precise genome-editing tools to target the traits breeders want to enhance in a plant’s own DNA. The precise targeting means that the desired characteristics can be boosted in a single generation rather than the dozens or hundreds that traditional plant breeding requires. Unlike genetic modification, NGTs do not introduce genetic material from other organisms. They work with the material that is already a natural part of the plant’s DNA. If we want European farmers to continue to produce safe, affordable food and farm in an environmentally sustainable way, we need to ensure that plant breeders have access to the latest plant technologies in their already shrinking toolbox. > If we want European farmers to continue to produce safe, affordable food and > farm in an environmentally sustainable way, we need to ensure that plant > breeders have access to the latest plant technologies(…) Currently, for many breeders across the EU, making the most of the latest varieties can involve navigating the complex world of patents. Intellectual property (IP) protection, which includes patents, is often portrayed as blocking access to an innovative technology. In actual fact, it’s not. IP protection plays a crucial role in ensuring access to and safeguarding scientific progress by securing a fair return on investment for researchers. In Europe, plant varieties can be protected under the Plant Breeders’ Rights system, which grants breeders the ability to market their innovations while allowing others to use them for further breeding. However, technological inventions, such as new traits or breeding techniques, may be protected by patents, provided they meet certain legal requirements, which include being genuinely inventive and having an industrial application. In this case, users have access to the patented technology through different mechanisms such as licensing. Effective IP protection ensures that innovators benefit from their inventions. This encourages healthy competition, which leads, in turn, to more innovation. > Effective IP protection ensures that innovators benefit from their inventions. > This encourages healthy competition, which leads, in turn, to more innovation. This can be a complex environment to navigate, especially for breeders who are not trained as IP specialists. Small businesses that want to use patented innovations can face obstacles such as lack of transparency regarding the existence of a patented trait, complexity in negotiating with a patent holder, and insecurity about fair terms and conditions. These time-consuming and expensive processes can lead some companies to refrain from breeding new varieties with the latest innovations or to fear they might be infringing patents when using a new variety released on the market. In order to reduce this complexity, plant breeders have launched several initiatives such as platforms to improve transparency around patented traits and to facilitate access to patents. These platforms strike a balance between rewarding innovation and ensuring fair availability so no single organization can monopolize critical patented inventions. For over a decade, the International Licensing Platform (ILP), has been providing access to patented traits in vegetable crops. Recognising the need for a similar system in other crops, European plant breeding companies sought to expand this model to a wider range of crops, including corn, sunflower, cereals, sugar beet, potatoes, fruit and flowers. In 2023, a group of European plant breeding companies came together to launch the Agricultural Crop Licensing Platform (ACLP), with the aim of facilitating fair access to patented traits and promoting innovation across multiple crop types. This new platform makes it easy for breeders to access current and future technologies. Instead of having to worry about complex patent rules, all they need to do is enter a standard licensing agreement and agree on a royalty fee with the patent holder. If they cannot reach an agreement within six months, they have the right to go to arbitration at the end of which they are guaranteed to get a license to use the patented variety. This system covers over 95% of all patented traits currently available on the market in Europe. The ACLP has been developed by plant breeders as a way to ensure that seed companies can offer their customers the best available varieties to deal with the competing challenges faced by European agriculture. > The ACLP has been developed by plant breeders as a way to ensure that seed > companies can offer their customers the best available varieties to deal with > the competing challenges faced by European agriculture.   If we want European farmers and Europe’s agriculture to remain competitive and produce food in a sustainable way, we must continue to enable access to the best plant varieties that the latest technologies can provide. #EnablingInnovation | www.aclp.eu | LinkedIn: ACLP – The Agricultural Crop Licensing Platform

BRUSSELS — Donald Trump is an equal-opportunity mercantilist. When it comes to the European Union’s €198 billion trade surplus with the United States, he’ll claw at any sector he can. Brandishing 25 percent tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, the U.S. president has demanded that the bloc buy more American cars, fossil fuels, weapons, pharmaceuticals — and food. “They don’t take our farm products, they take almost nothing and we take everything from them … tremendous amounts of food and farm products,” Trump complained to journalists in Florida earlier this month, decrying his country’s €18 billion deficit in agri-food trade with Europe. Taking more of the first four is feasible. The Commission can lower its 10 percent duty on imported automobiles, while EU countries can purchase less oil from Kazakhstan, fewer missiles from South Korea, and smaller drug batches from Switzerland. These demands would hurt local industry, but they are doable if Brussels wants to appease the irascible ultranationalist. The fifth is not. A range of culinary, phytosanitary and political obstacles bar the way to Europe’s importing most American staples — from Texan beef and Kentucky chicken to Wisconsin milk and Kansas wheat. Then there’s the fact the new EU commissioners for agriculture and animal welfare, Christophe Hansen and Olivér Várhelyi, want to tightly regulate agri-food imports. It may be a bitter pill for the president to swallow. But not even his “Art of the Deal” can vanquish Europe’s Art of the Meal. THE INVISIBLE HAND PICKS EUROPEAN FOOD  Contrary to what Trump says, the imbalance in agri-food trade isn’t due to unfair customs duties. U.S. and EU rates are similarly low for most products: zero for hard liquor, a few percent for wine and cereals, and 5 percent to 10 percent for fruits, vegetables, cured meats, confectionery, canned food and processed goods. The exceptions are EU dairy and pork (often upward of 20 percent), yet these aren’t areas where American rivals have much of a chance anyway, given that the EU runs a massive surplus in both categories (Germany and Spain are top exporters). Moreover, the U.S. is protective too — for example, on beef — and accepted higher EU dairy duties in the 1988 Uruguay round of GATT negotiations. Why? Because it extracted a promise that the EU wouldn’t subsidize oilseed production. Why would that matter to the Americans? Because that’s what they’re best at cultivating. Farms in the U.S. are on average 10 times bigger than in the EU and are able to churn out raw materials: hunks of meat, blocks of cheese and silos full of cereals. However, apart from the odd Californian wine, the U.S. doesn’t have many specialty products to vaunt. Europe is the opposite: A mosaic of small, regionally diverse farms, its producers are uncompetitive in most commodities, but possess an advantage in traditional foods. For example, the continent has five times more “geographical indication” trademarks than the U.S., allowing its farmers to transform simple crops into premium goods.  It’s bad agribusiness but great gastronomy, which is the second reason Americans spend more on EU farm goods than vice versa. While Americans happily gobble and slurp European GIs, Europeans typically find U.S. foods too fatty, salty, sugary or alcoholic for their palates. “If you look at the product composition, it’s very different,” said John Clarke, until recently the EU’s top agricultural trade negotiator. “The EU exports mostly high-value products: wine, spirits, charcuterie, olive oil, cheese. The U.S. exports low-value commodities: soya, maize, almonds … the fact [these have] a lower unit value is a fact of life.” During Trump’s first term, a bad harvest in Brazil and Argentina at least gave Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker an opportunity to offer Washington an apparent concession: The EU would buy more American soybeans. Trump gleefully celebrated what was in fact a financial necessity for European farmers, who need soy for animal feed. This time that won’t work, though. Brazilian grain harvests are near record levels, while Ukraine is investing heavily in oilseeds. The Commission is rolling out a protein strategy that  encourages supply diversification and more domestic production. And Europeans are eating less red meat, dragging soybean demand down. PHYTOSANITARY PARANOIA If Trump wants Europeans to eat more American food, he’ll have to convince them to swallow something even tougher: U.S. food safety standards. Europeans might buy American software, movies and weapons, but they aren’t keen on U.S. beef pumped with hormones, chlorine-washed chicken or genetically modified corn. The main reason? Brussels’ precautionary principle — a regulatory approach that requires proof a product is safe before it can be sold. The U.S., by contrast, operates on a risk-based system, where anything not proven harmful is fair game. That divergence has created a trade minefield. American beef exports are capped at 35,000 metric tons annually under a special quota, thanks to an EU-wide ban on hormone-treated meat. U.S. poultry is largely locked out because of pathogen reduction treatments — a fancy way of saying Americans rinse their chicken in antimicrobial washes the EU deems unacceptable. Genetically modified crops, a staple of U.S. agribusiness, also face strict EU restrictions, requiring lengthy approvals and labeling rules that spook European consumers. Pesticides are another flash point. Today, over 70 different pesticides banned in the EU as toxic to human health and the environment remain widespread in U.S. grain and fruit farming. That includes chlorpyrifos, an insecticide linked to brain damage in children, and paraquat, a weedkiller associated with a higher long-term risk of Parkinson’s disease. As a result, Brussels imposes residue limits that frequently force U.S. growers to create separate, EU-compliant supply chains. While Trump may rage about tariffs and trade imbalances, it’s Brussels’ food safety regulations — not import duties — that are keeping much American food off European plates. And with the EU mulling even stricter crackdowns on imports that don’t conform to its standards, expect the transatlantic trade menu to get even leaner. DON’T ANGER THE FARMERS Trump may not be aware, but European capitals also witnessed furious farmer protests last year. Fear of foreign competition was one of the main triggers, with unions bitterly criticizing imports from Ukraine and South America’s Mercosur bloc for their looser production standards, laxer agrochemical use and cheaper agricultural land. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have still not lifted their illegal blockades on Ukrainian grain, and the Commission is in no position to force them to do so. In fact, Brussels has responded by making fair pricing for farmers the lodestar of its upcoming agri-food policy. The EU even wants to apply “mirror clauses” to imports to align rules on animal welfare and pesticides, according to a leaked draft of a long-term policy vision due out this week. A surge in U.S. imports would likely prompt the same attacks. These could be politically decisive ahead of stormy presidential races this year in Poland and Romania, two European breadbaskets, as well as major elections in France, Italy and Spain in the next two years.  So is there no solution to Trump’s hunger for agri-trade parity? It seems not, unless the president decides to massively expand the U.S. military’s presence in the EU, bringing tens of thousands more peanut butter-loving troops to defend the continent’s security. It’s a crazy idea of course. Then again … Giovanna Coi contributed reporting.