The EU Agricultural Promotion Policy – A tool for the promotion of mountain farming

In its Farm to Fork Strategy, the European Commission announced it would revise the EU Agricultural Promotion Policy to encourage the consumption of sustainable products.

Yet, Euromontana fears that the revision of the Promotion Policy would not take into account all dimensions of sustainability. A sustainability-oriented Promotion Policy is possible if the objectives, structure and evaluation criteria of promotion calls are redesigned. To do so, Euromontana shared its recommendations as part of the Commission’s public consultation.

This position paper includes recommendations to:

• Better valorise the Optional Quality Term “mountain product” in the Agricultural Promotion Policy.
• Better target small producers by simplifying the application process and allocating more budget to calls targeting the EU market, which would also be more consistent with European climate objectives.
• Prioritise sustainable products in the allocation of funds by creating, together with stakeholders, evaluation criteria which address the three pillars of sustainability in order to fully take into account the products’ environmental, economic and social impacts.