Ensuring the CAP fits
Traditionally the EU's largest budget area, the CAP is the Union's oldest common policy area. Originally set up to ensure food security and maintain a fair standard of living for farmers, the CAP has evolved to promote such things as rural development, land custodianship and rural heritage. Given its nature, the policy has an immense and varying regional impact, and reforms to the CAP affect Europe's regions differently. Funded by the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), the 'Common agricultural policy regionalised impact - the rural development dimension' (CAPRI-RD) project is a pan-European tool set up to gauge the regional impact of the CAP. CAPRI-RD has analysed the regional impact of CAP's pillar I (production support) and pillar II (rural development), employing economic, social and environmental indicators. With various achievements often exceeding the consortium's own expectations, during its lifetime the project developed databases on rural development policies and indicators, regional social accounting matrices, and CAPRI database extension and quality management. In addition, project members formulated a number of models for rural development that quantify the instruments and programmes under pillar II. The CAPRI-RD tool will inform policymakers and other stakeholders on the consequences of changes to the CAP, thereby aiding future decision making and reforms.
