Measuring CAP potential contribution to soil health: lessons from a capacity building event

As policy interest grows in farming‑practice‑based approaches, which directly link CAP interventions to supported practices and environmental outcomes, the European Evaluation Helpdesk for the CAP led a capacity‑building event in mid‑April to explore how to quantify the potential contribution of CAP Strategic Plans to soil protection.

The event gathered about 60 participants from 19 different Member States, including Managing Authorities, evaluators and National CAP Networks, alongside a representative of the European Commission (DG AGRI).

The webinar aimed to support Member States in understanding the methodology developed in the study “Rough estimate of the soil protection potential of the CAP Strategic Plans over the 2023-2027 period” covering 13 CAP Strategic Plans, selected to reflect the diversity of EU pedo‑climatic conditions and levels of ambition on soil protection. The study focused on translating CAP programming choices into quantified, practice‑based estimates of potential effects on soil health, looking at six soil characteristics:

The approach of the study is particularly relevant in the context of the future CAP framework, where Member States will be expected to link interventions to practices, alongside performance indicators on greenhouse gas emissions, ammonia emissions and soil organic carbon. Beyond ex assessment, the methodology was presented as a tool that can support monitoring and evaluation throughout the policy cycle, provided it is adapted to national contexts.

The methodology relies on three main elements: CAP Strategic Plan programming data, scientific evidence from the JRC Farming Practices Evidence Library, and a systematic labelling of CAP interventions and GAECs with farming practices. It applies harmonised soil improvement coefficients to the six soil characteristics, and aggregates results at intervention, type of intervention and CAP Strategic Plan level. Strong emphasis was placed on explicit documentation of assumptions, data gaps, and uncertainties.

Adrien de Pierrepont, from the Evaluation Helpdesk, gave a live demonstration showing how the Excel based tools can be used and adapted by users to refine assumptions, adjust coefficients or re‑attribute areas.

The tools were presented not as final results, but as a flexible analytical framework enabling countries to improve estimates using their own data. It was highlighted that two Member States, France and Luxembourg, have already started testing or adapting the methodology for evaluation purposes, illustrating its potential beyond the original study sample.

Participants raised several questions, notably on the ongoing work to improve the coefficients used in the study and on inconsistencies in the farm-practice labelling. The Commission provided updates on these aspects, indicating that the Joint Research Centre was working on completing missing EU-level coefficients for additional farming practices, and highlighting the quarterly updates of the farm -practice labelling and the possibility given to Member States to directly report issues spotted.

The event concluded by recalling that results should be interpreted as indicative potentials rather than measured impacts, but that the approach developed for the study provides a valuable basis for reflecting on the CAP’s contribution to protecting soil health.