The European Commission (EC) is continuously working hand in hand with the representatives of the decision makers from the EU member states in the frame of the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) to support the implementation of the EU water policy. The following articles will offer you the EU water policy updates on three topics:

• Water and agriculture;
• Water and nutrients: new Best Practice Guide
• Drinking Water directive: update requires changes?

Water and agriculture

The European Commission DG Environment (EC DG ENV) together with EU Water Directors evaluated the work of the working group on water and agriculture in the frame of the CIS on water policy. It has been concluded that there is a need to strengthen the link of actions on water and sustainable agriculture in establishing a closer collaboration between the informal EU Water Directors and the relevant counterparts - the decision makers / agriculture administrations from the Member States dealing with the agricultural development (and those who are involved in rural development programmes).

Water is the lifeblood of agriculture, and farming accounts for around 70% of freshwater used in the world (OECD). Therefore water management and agriculture are strongly related. Pressure from the agricultural activities takes form of pollutant emmissions, water overuse, physical and biological changes of ecosystems.

The purpose is to develop a joint water and agriculture agenda to work hand-in-hand to reach the following ambitions:
(a) to support sustainable agriculture in terms of water quantity and quality,
(b) to address diffuse pollution challenge to the receiving waters,
(c) to use more efficiently European funds available for water and sustainable agriculture,
(d) to establish better link of river basin management plans and programme of measures with the more and better measures for greening the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP pillar I and II).

The idea of the new approach to develop a strategy and a roadmap has been presented by the Dutch presidency at the Strategic Coordination group (SCG) meeting on 08-09 March. The strategy will be presented to the Water Directors on 09-10 June 2016 to discuss and agree on concrete actions in establishing closer links and foreseeing concrete actions to work together in linking water and agricultural policies. By this new initiative the EU water decisionmakers community pave the way forward to address water-agri aspects at the decisionmakers level going to the new partnerships with agricultural representatives.

Possible themes for joint working agenda are: water (re)use, fertiliser/nutrients, manure/organic matter, land use/ erosion, climate change, legislation/instruments, funding, circular economy.

It can be concluded, that this is a new attempt from the European water decision-makers community to address sustainable water-agriculture challenges in a more systemic way. This attempt should go further opening new opportunities:

Firstly, on linking water and sustainable agricultural policy joint actions at the regional level. Concretely: establishing better links in implementing programme of measures foreseen in the 2nd river basin management plans, and establishing and implementing more greening measures for sustainable agriculture in implementing rural development plans.

Secondly, research and innovation community from both sides - water and agriculture at the EU and at the regional level, - should strive to establish closer partnerships in working together and proposing innovative solutions to address challenges of water -agricultural productivity nexus.

Thirdly, regional and EU-wide stakeholders and financing authorities needs to develop new and/or streamline existing financial funding schemes for water and sustainable agriculture to ensure in creating smart jobs and continuous sustainable growth of these back-bone sectors of regions in Europe.

As from Flanders side, we have already established a good practice working within the cross-sectorial team of the decision-makers at the Coordination Committee on Integrated Water Policy(CIW) who is responsible for the coordination of the integrated water policy in Flemish Region and that Committee has representatives from different policy domains including agriculture (click here).

Action from your side: If you have a project idea or an innovative solution addressing water - agriculture nexus challenges do not hesitate to contact Vlakwa team.