La Politica Agricola Comune nel Novecento. Identità, resilienza e tutele/esternalitàà socio-ambientali

The chapter reconstructs the evolution of the Common Agricultural Policy over the course of the twentieth century, analyzing its economic, social, and environmental effects on European agricultural systems, with particular attention to the Italian case. The contribution shows how the CAP, originally designed to counter rural depopulation and ensure adequate incomes for farmers, supported a profound process of modernization, encouraging productivity growth, technological investment, and a closer relationship between agriculture and the agri-food industry. At the same time, the essay highlights the limits and negative externalities of the model adopted: increasing overproduction, waste of resources, significant environmental impacts, and distributive imbalances among different European agricultural areas. Drawing on a broad base of quantitative data, the authors show how, in Italy, the CAP stimulated a significant increase in yields and production, especially in the sectors most closely integrated into processing chains. Subsequent reform cycles — from the 1980s to Agenda 2000 and the Fischler reform — then gradually steered the system toward quality, sustainability, and rural development. Overall, the chapter offers a nuanced account of how long-term public policies can generate both trajectories of resilience and new forms of vulnerability.