Labelling of interventions in CAP Strategic Plans by farm practices

The current CAP programming period 2023-2027 requires EU Member States to develop CAP Strategic Plans (CSP) that, among other aspects, provide descriptions of the interventions that support farm practices. A common classification system of farm practices was developed by the JRC (offering a typology of more than 350 farm practices) to align the terminology used in the 28 different CSPs and facilitate the comparison and aggregation of the design of interventions supporting environmental, climate and animal welfare practices.  

To implement this classification system and allow for the aggregation and comparison of interventions, all relevant interventions were assigned farm practice labels. This report describes the purpose of labelling CSP interventions by farm practices, and how the labelling was undertaken.  

Managing Authorities were requested to quality-review the initial farm practice labelling, and, based on their feedback, further revisions were made. The finalised labelling resulted in the assignment of around 28 000 farm practice labels to about 5000 CAP interventions, unit amounts, and Good Agricultural and Environment Conditions (GAECs).  

The report also touches upon various methodological aspects that end users are to be aware of to ensure that farm practice labelling is used correctly. For instance, the labelling reflects the planned intervention, and therefore the labelling shows potential farm practices to be supported through the intervention; if the farm practice is actually supported depends on the implementation of the intervention.  

In addition, the report highlights that in some cases the farm practice labelling was done with different levels of detail for different types of interventions, depending on the level of information available in the CSPs. More such caveats can be found in the report itself.  

The labelling of CAP interventions by farm practices can be accessed on the webpage of the Catalogue of CAP interventions (the farm practice labels can be accessed and downloaded in Excel) for the purpose of policy monitoring, analysis, and evaluation, thereby contributing to improving the design of CSP interventions. 

At the time of writing, the farm practices included in the Catalogue reflect the CSP amendments as approved by March 15, 2024; the labelling will be updated on a regular basis to reflect future amendments to the CSPs.