Is the Common Agricultural Policy tailored to the needs of farmers? Opinions of agricultural producers from Poland, Romania and Lithuania

The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been reformed several times since its launch in the early 1960s. It has evolved from a price support policy into a mechanism for supporting agricultural income and investment. At the same time, increasing concern has been given to environmental issues, in line with the paradigm of sustainable development. Part of this approach is the concern for the viability of family farms, including smallholder ones. The question that arises here is whether today's EU agricultural policy is really adapted to the needs of smallholder farms. The aim of this publication is to find an answer to the above question. Therefore, the study was conducted to assess the opinions of small family farms owners on the financial support within the EU common agricultural policy. Three European countries -Poland, Romania and Lithuania -were included in the analysis due to the relatively high share of small-scale farms. The research was organised in two stages. In the first, a synthetic measure of sustainability of smallholder farms was created among the holdings surveyed. The second stage included in-depth interviews with 20 - in each country -most sustainable farms. As a result, it was proved that financial support, especially in the form of the simplified direct payment, is necessary to ensure the viability of small farms, but the owners also expect greater price stability and equal conditions of competition within the food supply chain.