Last night, EU Agriculture Ministers, under the leadership of the Irish Presidency, reached a partial agreement on the post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Copa and Cogeca acknowledge the progress made on several technical points of contention but warn that the most fundamental questions concerning the future of European agriculture remain unanswered. An agreement on the CAP without clarity on its financing, its common character and its implementation cannot provide the certainty that European farmers and agricultural cooperatives urgently need. Anywhere but in Brussels, such a situation would be considered utterly absurd, as we are clearly putting the cart before the horse. This uncertainty illustrates the consequences of the European Commission’s decision to integrate the CAP into a broader financial framework, undermining its visibility and predictability, while the current budget scenario points to cuts of more than 20% in the majority of EU Member States. Following the adoption of the Stockholm Declaration on 15 October, Copa and Cogeca members remain fully mobilised. At a time when European agriculture is facing a potentially historic turning point, and against such a challenging geopolitical backdrop, we simply cannot afford to add such a massive regulatory and political risk to the equation. As the European Parliament advances its own position, MEPs now have a crucial responsibility to address the shortcomings of the Commission's proposals. The trilogues will need to deliver substantial corrections, not simply adjustments at the margins. 🔗Read full Press Release >>>>> copa-cogeca.eu/press-release…

📄 Copa-Cogeca has sent a letter to the ambassadors of COREPER I ahead of today's Energy Council, calling for European agriculture and agri-food cooperatives to be recognised as a strategic sector in the EU's response to energy supply constraints and rising fuel prices. Our letter calls for decisive European action on six priorities: 1️⃣ Protect essential agricultural production and agri-food processing. Energy-saving measures and emergency allocations must take account of seasonal production cycles and food safety requirements. 2️⃣ Address rising energy and diesel costs through coordinated EU action. Measures must be targeted, temporary and proportionate, avoiding fragmented national responses that could distort the Single Market. 3️⃣ Unlock the potential of European biofuels. Provide regulatory flexibility for sustainable EU-produced biofuels, strengthen the Union Database to prevent fraud, and establish workable criteria for intercrops and degraded land. 4️⃣ Modernise rural electricity grids. Rural areas cannot drive the energy transition while facing inadequate grid capacity and unnecessary permitting barriers. 5️⃣ Develop a European strategy for renewable energy on farms. Support biogas, biomethane, small-scale anaerobic digestion and energy storage, while recognising digestate as a valuable resource rather than a regulatory burden. 6️⃣ Support combined heat and power systems on farms, in cooperatives and across agri-food processing facilities. ⚡️Farmers and agricultural cooperatives are not just energy consumers. They are also producers of renewable electricity, biogas, biomethane and biofuels. Recognising agriculture as both a pillar of food security and a driver of Europe's energy transition is essential to safeguarding the sector's competitiveness and resilience.

📍 Copa and Cogeca Presidents are in Luxembourg today for the #AGRIFISH Council meeting, where Ministers are discussing the Council’s partial general approach on the CAP, which could be adopted by the end of the day. With rising costs continuing to put pressure on farmers and agricultural cooperatives, this morning’s discussions provided another opportunity to stress that any agreement on the future #CAP must preserve it as a standalone EU policy, backed by a dedicated, inflation-adjusted budget. Our Presidents also emphasised the importance of a fair food supply chain that properly remunerates farmers and highlighted the sector’s high expectations for the revision of the #UTP Directive. Against the backdrop of geopolitical developments in the Middle East, which have driven sharp increases in energy, fuel and fertiliser costs, @masgiansanti and @LennartN_LRF called for exceptional, temporary support through the #EAFRD. They also reiterated the need for fair trade, warning of the cumulative impact of ongoing trade negotiations. The Presidents further stressed the importance of delivering on the simplification agenda, including through a new Environmental Omnibus following the ongoing “stress test”, while investing in Europe's resilience, particularly in areas such as water management. 💧 They also met with the new Cypriot Minister to continue the constructive dialogue established during the Cypriot Presidency. 🔜 The coming months will be decisive for European agriculture.

📌Launched today at the Global Bioeconomy Summit in Dublin, the Bio-based Europe Alliance offers an opportunity to turn Europe’s bioeconomy ambitions into real market opportunities. Copa and Cogeca will join as observers, with the aim of connecting industrial demand with sustainable agricultural and forestry production, while ensuring primary producers receive a fair share of the value created. 🔗Read full Statement >>>>> copa-cogeca.eu/press-release…

Copa-Cogeca is present at the Global Bioeconomy Summit in Dublin, with Marko Mäki-Hakola, Chair of the WP on forestry 🌲🌳 We gathered with @EUBioeconomy (EUBA) members to promote together our latest brochure containing concrete examples on bioeconomy in practice #GBS2026

🗳️The Chairmanship of the Working Party Potatoes just had elections today. Congratulations to Chair @geoffroydevry (@FNSEA 🇫🇷) and Vice-Chairs Augusto Di Silvio (@CooperativeITA 🇮🇹), Jacob Hansen (DAFC 🇩🇰) 🥔The potato sector is facing an unprecedented crisis. The Working Group will continue to bring expertise and identify practical solutions to strengthen resilience, sustainability and efficiency. New Chairmanship will work to safeguard farm profitability, future investments and the long-term attractiveness of potato production.

🟩The provisional agreement reached today between the @Europarl_EN and the @EUCouncil on the targeted revision of Regulation (EU) 2018/848 on organic production represents a significant milestone. Given the tight timeframe for adopting the revised legislation before the end of 2026, Copa and Cogeca recognise the efforts of the EU institutions in reaching a timely compromise. 🌐The agreement avoids potential disruption to international trade and provides greater predictability for operators across the organic supply chain by ensuring the continuation of equivalence arrangements with third countries until 2036.

🗳️The chairmanship of the @COPACOGECA Working Party on Feedingstuffs was elected this morning. Valérie Bris (@lacoopagricole 🇫🇷) has been re-elected as Chair and @FaustoToni (@CooperativeITA 🇮🇹) has been re-elected as Vice-Chair. 📌Their appointments come at an important time, as the Food and Feed Omnibus debates are close to a conclusion in the Parliament and the entry into force of the EUDR on 30 December 2026 will have significant impacts on the feed sector.

Enlarging 🇪🇺 to include the countries currently seeking membership would add 2% to its GDP and 11% to its population, but nearly 30% to its agricultural area according to @SAFThinkTank. The numbers speak for themselves: agriculture is central to the EU enlargement debate!

📌As our 12th European Farmers' Congress draws to a close in Stockholm, Copa President Massimiliano Giansanti has outlined four clear priorities for the decisive months ahead: 1️⃣ SECURE A STRONG, COMMON AND PROPERLY FUNDED CAP. A dedicated budget of €500 billion, reflecting the current CAP budget adjusted for inflation, to preserve the CAP's common character, protect the Single Market and ensure a level playing field for European farmers and cooperatives. 2️⃣ PUT AGRICULTURAL COMPETITIVENESS FIRST. Turn promises of simplification into reality, cut unnecessary red tape and involve farmers from the outset. Europe needs policies that enable farmers to produce, invest and innovate, rather than hold them back. 3️⃣ MAKE FOOD SECURITY A PILLAR OF EUROPEAN SECURITY. Europe cannot strengthen its strategic autonomy while weakening its agricultural production capacity. Food security is not optional. It is fundamental to Europe's sovereignty, stability and resilience. 4️⃣ ENSURE FAIR TRADE AND PREPARE FOR EU ENLARGEMENT. Guarantee fair competition, equivalent production standards and effective safeguards. Trade and enlargement must strengthen European agriculture, not undermine its future. As EU budget negotiations enter their decisive phase, Europe's farming organisations will remain more united, vigilant and mobilised than ever. 🚜We are ready to come back to Brussels if necessary. Because this is about more than farming. It is about Europe's food security, rural communities and strategic autonomy.

👩‍🌾15 October is the International Day of #RuralWomen the 12th Copa-Cogeca Congress did more than mark the date, it confronted an uncomfortable truth head-on: women farmers still face structural barriers that have nothing to do with their competence and everything to do with how the system is built #IYWF2026 Collateral requirements are designed around land ownership. Credit assessments that can misread farms because of their scale. Risk perception can penalise women before they've made a single business decision. The result❔ Women who want to invest, innovate and modernise still face many barriers, including from cultural and traditional perceptions. Without encouraging women and especially young women, the generational renewal EU desperately needs is also affected. Francesca Gironi, Chairwoman of the @COPACOGECA Women's Committee, connected the dots: access to land, access to finance, and the role of women in farm succession are not three separate issues. They are one question about who gets to farm in Europe's next generation.

📜 The Stockholm Declaration is now on the table of Europe's decision-makers. At our Congress, we presented the Declaration directly to Commissioners Christophe Hansen and Jessika Roswall during frank and open discussions on the challenges facing European agriculture, and above all, farmers' deep concerns over the ongoing negotiations on the EU budget and the future #CAP. Commissioner Jessika Roswall underlined the fundamental role of agriculture in Europe's competitiveness: "Agriculture is the bedrock of European competitiveness. It's part of the fabric of Europe." She also highlighted the growing impact of soil degradation, droughts and extreme weather events, with recent estimates putting the economic cost of the 2026 droughts at €40–70 billion and counting. With Commissioner Christophe Hansen, the Copa and Cogeca Presidencies reiterated a clear message: despite his strong commitment to European farmers, the current proposals for the future EU budget and CAP risk undermining the resources, common character and predictability of European agricultural policy. And this at precisely the moment when farmers need greater stability and a clear long-term perspective. The #StockholmDeclaration has been delivered. Our message is clear. And as negotiations enter their decisive phase, we remain more vigilant and mobilised than ever. 📷Eva Dalin

How can European agriculture remain competitive and resilient in an increasingly turbulent world? This was the central question of this morning plenary session at the 12th Copa-Cogeca Congress. 🇸🇪 @PalleBorgstrom opened with the Swedish perspective, highlighting strong public support for domestic agriculture, with consumers willing to pay more for Swedish products, particularly when it comes to animal welfare. But with fewer farmers and increasingly difficult access to land, greater responsibilities are falling on fewer shoulders. 🇪🇺@LennartN_LRF, Cogeca President, broadened the picture to Europe: farmers are no longer facing one crisis at a time, but all of them at once. Extreme weather, poor harvests, rising costs and shrinking margins are putting the sector under unprecedented pressure. We cannot ask farmers to deliver more while making their businesses less viable. A strong CAP, thriving cooperatives and better opportunities for young farmers and women are essential to securing the sector's future. 🇮🇪 @martinheydonfg, Ireland's Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, echoed these concerns, stressing that the ongoing EU budget and CAP discussions are anything but abstract. The decisions taken today will determine whether farmers and rural communities can invest, produce and plan for the future with confidence. The message from Stockholm is clear: if Europe wants farmers tomorrow, it must give them the means to thrive today.

📢 From Stockholm, Europe's leading farming organisations are sounding the alarm. In a landmark declaration addressed to EU Heads of State and Government meeting in Brussels for the European Council meeting, the European farming community is sending a clear warning: European agriculture is approaching breaking point, and the window to rebuild it on solid foundations is rapidly closing. Agriculture has always been at the heart of the European project. Food security has never been merely an economic concern. It is a foundation of Europe's sovereignty, stability and peace. At a time of mounting geopolitical uncertainty, farming must be recognised as a pillar of Europe's security and defence. This means maintaining a strong, common and properly funded Common Agricultural Policy. 🇪🇺 Europe cannot strengthen its security or aspire to be a global power while weakening its own agricultural foundations. Defending the CAP is therefore not just about defending European agriculture. It is about defending Europe itself! 🔗Read Full #StockholmDeclaration >>>> copa-cogeca.eu/publications

🇪🇺🇺🇸#FARMERSCONGRESS2026 provided a great opportunity to connect with our American colleagues from the @FarmBureau and discuss the challenges we face on both sides of the Atlantic. Many common issues and challenges, both in the short and long term: the overall agricultural economic outlook, climate-related concerns, rising input costs, particularly for machinery and fertilisers, as well as land prices, and the growing strategic importance of agriculture in an increasingly tense geopolitical context. 📨This is also why @COPACOGECA and @FarmBureau Presidents decided to send a joint letter to Presidents Trump and von der Leyen ahead of the upcoming G20 Summit, calling on our leaders to give particular attention to agriculture and food security aspects in their discussions 🚜

💡EU research promises solutions to agriculture. In the meantime, companies hold digital tools to simplify paperwork that consumes farmers' time. 2 sessions at the Congress are tackling the same question: does any of it actually reach the farm gate? 3⃣ Horizon Europe projects were showcased, with Copa Cogeca on the ground to make sure research serves farmers’ needs. @UmbertoDP, Director for Resilience, Innovation and Social Affairs, opened with the principle that should govern every euro of EU research money: innovation is value creation and only counts when it can be adopted creating benefits for farmers. Projects make the case in practice: @EUFarmBook is an AI tool which is pulling the practical outputs of EU-funded research into one findable, accessible, multilingual reference point; BALANCE is testing nature-positive farming systems that combine restoration with production, on the premise that biodiversity and farm profitability are not enemies to be traded off; And @eu4advice is running 4 Living Labs in Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Hungary, where producers, advisors, researchers and consumers co-create solutions in real-life conditions. The Special Workshop on digital labelling takes the same fight to the administrative end. Every farmer knows the real cost of a paper label: hours in the office that should be hours in the field. At the centre of the session is #AgriGuide, developed by @CropLifeEU together with Copa Cogeca and partner. @COPACOGECA Secretary General Elli Tsiforou sets the bar: digitalisation must deliver tangible simplification, not move the paperwork to a screen. 🌐Jelte Wiersma of @CEMAagri emphasised on interoperability, because a digital label that can't talk to the machinery already in use is just another silo. 🖇️What links the two sessions is one conviction: knowledge and tools are only worth having if they are accessible and efficient; and only if the farming and cooperative sectors are involved from day one, not invited to the closing conference. #AgriGuide #DigitalFarming #Simplification

At #FARMERSCONGRESS2026 this afternoon we explored how AI is coming to European farms. Max Schulman (@MTKry) opened the session with an honest framing: AI can sharpen decisions, optimise inputs, cut red tape and boost resilience. But uptake is uneven, due to factors including high costs, patchy infrastructure, skills gaps, and one thorny question: who owns the data? @PL_LOND, Head of Unit for Data Governance at @EUAgri, brought the Commission's answer-in-progress: a policy framework for agricultural data — access, sharing, control, ownership — designed so that farmers and cooperatives can benefit from AI without losing confidence or control over their own business decisions. ▶️AI must strengthen farm businesses and give them a competitive edge. That means practical value, interoperability, accessible technology, real skills, knowledge, trustworthy data governance and farmers in the driver's seat.

Fertilisers. Crop protection. Feed. Labour. 4⃣ bills that decide whether a farm is profitable. That was the reality check from Matei Titianu, President of LAPAR, from production costs that keep climbing, inputs that are harder to get, and regulation that too often ignores the economics of the farm gate. @CarolVdHeyden (@Boerenbond) brought practical solutions on how to reconcile environmental rules with farmers' need for effective, accessible tools. There is a need for a true reflection of current legislation that affect these facets of agri life. But what happens when alternatives simply aren't there? Science has answers: innovation and best practices can optimise inputs without sacrificing productivity, answered Stéphane Jézéquel from @Arvalisofficiel. On top of that, labour is the sector's silent crisis. For Billy Goodburn (@ICOS1894) skills and training are key in preparing farmers and employees for technology that doesn't wait. To someone who said "what if I train them and they leave? " he once answered " what if you don't train them, and they stays ? " Cost pressure and labour shortage are not separate problems. 🪙They are the two sides of the same coin: knife-edge economic balance of farming. Policy that treats them as side issues will keep missing the point. "A competitive European farm sector is a strategic necessity for food security, for rural areas, for Europe itself.” concluded Copa Vice-President @gormanifa

#FARMERSCONGRESS2026 | Redéfinir l’Europe sur des bases solides ! L’agriculture est un pilier de la compétitivité et de la sécurité de l’#UE Ouverture du congrès par @CHansenEU " Je vais continuer à me battre pour un secteur agricole résilient et competitif" @COPACOGECA