Conseil Européen des Jeunes Agriculteurs

[4] [5] Joris Baecke 2009-2013 Matteo Bartolini 2013-2015 Alan Jagoe 2015-2017 Jannes Maes 2017-2021 Samuel Masse 2021 (Jan-Jun) Diana Lenzi 2021-2023 Peter Meedendorp 2023 - Present CEJA does not defend nor depend on any political ideology and gathers a broad spectrum of young farmers and rural youth members.

Apart from providing services to its members, CEJA stays in regular contact with young farmers’ organisations and agricultural institutions and associations throughout Europe and worldwide.

[9] The European Parliament recognised in its report on the Future of the CAP after 2013 in July 2010 that there was an urgent need to attract young generations to the agricultural sector in Europe and that policies such as favourable loans for credit and investment should be considered.

The paper lays out the organisation’s position on the topics of the definition of active farmer, access to land and credit, environmental measures, risk management tools, direct payments, rural development and smart agriculture.

The document calls on all stakeholders involved in the 2019 European elections to ensure that rural youth and young farmers can benefit from equal and fair opportunities in their personal, socio-educational and professional development.

The paper also emphasises the importance of involving young farmers in the process of designing the various elements in the Strategic Plans in order to ensure that budgets spent achieve their target objectives.

European young farmers, who strongly believe in the values of multilateralism, consider that ensuring competitive and resilient agriculture and food chains must be one of the core objectives of an EU trade policy in the future.

European young farmers call on EU policymakers to further take into account generational renewal as a strategic objective for the sustainability of food systems in the future and put forward an enabling framework to guarantee their economic and social resilience and thus empowering their environmental and climate action.