Sustainable agricultural sector: A key component of EU economic prosperity and security

The EU is facing a convergence of strategic challenges — geopolitical uncertainty, climate crisis, economic stagnation, and social inequality. The 2024–2029 Strategic Agenda underscores the urgency to ensure Europe remains free, democratic, secure, competitive, and prosperous. Agriculture, as a cornerstone of the EU’s economy, food system, and environmental landscape, is central to this transformation.

Business as usual is no longer an option. Despite its strengths, the agri-food sector is showing signs of vulnerability: stagnating yields, slow innovation uptake, critical import dependencies (e.g., fertilisers), environmental degradation, and a growing gap between large and small farms. At the same time, this sector holds untapped potential to support the green transition, economic growth, and food security.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), representing nearly one-third of the EU budget, is the primary instrument for shaping this transformation. Ensuring its effectiveness in the post-2027 era requires renewed vision, evidence-based guidance, and systems thinking across economic, environmental, and social domains.

This joint paper synthesises the insights of leading agri-economic modelling teams to guide future CAP development. It identifies five Priority Action Areas (PAAs) — income & resilience, nutrient autonomy, trade, innovation in the bioeconomy, and digitalisation — and proposes future directions for modelling tools to better assess complex policy trade-offs.

Drawing on decades of experience in model-based policy analysis, the paper not only offers strategic advice to policymakers but also outlines a forward-looking modelling agenda. This includes greater integration of environmental and economic data, better representation of innovation and consumer shifts, and enhanced systems-level understanding of the agri-food bioeconomy.

The paper serves as a contribution to current and upcoming discussions on CAP post-2027, European food system transformation, and strategic autonomy. It is intended as a tool for dialogue with policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders aiming to co-create a sustainable and prosperous agricultural future for Europe.

Keywords

Sustainable agriculture, EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Economic modelling, Food security, Agrifood competitiveness, Bioeconomy, Digitalisation in agriculture, Environmental sustainability, Innovation policy, Climate-smart farming, Strategic autonomy, Nutrient management, Farm resilience, Trade policy, EU economic strategy, Model-data fusion, Horizon Europe, LAMASUS, BrightSpace, ACT4CAP27

Funding acknowledgement

ACT4CAP27, BrightSpac & LAMASUS are funded by the European Union. 
Horizon Europe Grant Agreement Numbers: ACT4CAP27 101134874 │ BrightSpace 101060075 │LAMASUS 101060423
Views are of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. 
Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Cite this publication
(Havlík, van Meijl et al. 2025); Havlík, P., van Meijl, H., Krisztin, T., Müller, M., van Berkum, S., Fellmann, T., Gocht, A., Guyomard, H., Haniotis, T., Matthews, A., Sckokai, P., Stepanyan, D., Witzke, P., Balázs, K., Bos, D. (2025). Sustainable agricultural sector: A key component of EU economic prosperity and security – An economic modellers’ perspective. A joint perspective paper by Horizon Europe projects ACT4CAP27, BrightSpace and LAMASUS. . DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16413131

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Further information

ACT4CAP27: Advancing Capacity and analytical Tools for supporting Common Agricultural Policies post 2027 │ https://act4cap27.eu/ │https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101134874

BrightSpace: Designing a Roadmap for Effective and Sustainable Strategies for Assessing and Addressing the Challenges of EU Agriculture to Navigate within a Safe and Just Operating Space │ https://brightspace-project.eu/ │https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101060075

LAMASUS: LAnd use and MAnagement modelling for SUStainable governance │ https://www.lamasus.eu/ │ https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101060423