Impact of the new Common Agricultural Policy (2015-2020) on the value of direct payments and on farmers’ income in Wallonia (South of Belgium)

A new Common Agricultural Policy was defined in 2013, with a new structure for direct payment. In Wallonia, the government implemented the following scheme: 30% for the green payment, 29.9% for the basic payment, 17% for the additional payment for the first 30 ha, 1.8% for young farmers and 21.3% for couple payments. Due to convergence, the mean support through direct payments will decline from 21,900 € in 2014 to 19,283 € in 2019. The number of losers will be equivalent to the number of gainers. Regions where cereals and sugar beet are produced will lose the most, where the region suitable for cattle raising will gain somewhat. There will be a better distribution of direct payments among farmers: the Gini index will decline from 0.55 to 0.49. The highest negative impact on income will occur for the specialties “green crops”, “crops and dairy cattle” and “crops and non-dairy cattle”: the least negative impact will be observed within the specialties “dairy cattle”, “meat cattle” and “dairy and meat cattle”. The reform will be more profitable for the farms from 30 to 50 ha and will mainly impact the largest farms. Finally, the CAP reform implemented in Wallonia guarantees a smooth evolution to 2020.