Blog: A history of agricultural policy reform

In the first of a weekly four-part series looking at the history of agricultural policy reform, National Farmers' Union Director of Strategy, Martin Haworth, explains how a failure to support productivity in the first decade of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy led to long-term problems.

In the series of blogs the author takes a look back at the development of agricultural policy at the EU level to see what lessons can be learnt and to explain the context of why AG policy is as it is today.

In the second blog the author discusses how the CAP has been seriously hampered by a lack of clarity about the purpose of its principal instrument - direct payments.