Insights on part-time farming from both the farmyard and the policy table
“Will pluriactive (part-time) farmers be excluded from support?”
Behind it lies a much deeper issue: who qualifies as a “genuine” farmer in the European model – and who does not. Ultimately, it asks whether we want agriculture reserved solely for those who live entirely off farming, or a rural economy that includes households with multiple income sources.
From a policy perspective – and with some experience of both livestock production and the CAP machinery – I would frame it differently:
- How do eligibility rules for direct payments interact with the real structure of rural households?
- What does EU law actually say?
- And what are the political economy incentives that push us towards tighter, looser, or sometimes simply confused definitions of the “active” farmer?
What EU Law Really Says About Pluriactive Farmers
The starting point is Regulation (EU) 2021/2115, the basic act for the CAP 2023–2027. It introduces the notion of “active farmer” at EU level and allows Member States to define the “genuine farmer” in their Strategic Plans.EUR-Lex
In its recitals, in which the legislator explains the logic, there is a crucial sentence that is often ignored in the Greek debate. Recital (19) states, in essence, that the definition of ‘active farmer’ must not result in the exclusion of pluri-active or part-time farmers who also engage in non-agricultural activities.EUR-Lex
In plain language:
- The objective is to target support to those who really farm,
- …without discriminating against those who also work outside agriculture.
The EU’s intention is to cut off armchair farmers and purely non-agricultural entities that capture subsidies without real production – not to penalise families who need a second salary to stabilise their income.
This is a political choice at European level. The CAP is designed to support agricultural activity, not to impose an ideological model of “full-time or nothing”.
From “Part-Time Farmer” to the Pluriactive Rural Household
For decades, research and international organisations have moved away from the simplistic idea of the “part-time farmer” as a deviation from the norm. The focus today is on the pluriactive farm household. Rural families that combine farm income with off-farm work and/or on-farm diversification (agrotourism, processing, direct sales, services).OECD
The evidence is remarkably consistent:
- Pluriactive households are often more resilient in terms of income, smoothing shocks in prices, yields and policy.OECD
- Off-farm employment can finance farm investment and innovation that would be impossible from agricultural income alone.OECD
- In many regions, if you “remove” pluriactive households from the statistics, you no longer have a critical mass of rural population to sustain services, local markets, social life.OECD
In that sense, the pluriactive farmer is not a “parasite” of the system. They are part of the load-bearing structure of rural Europe. The legislator, by insisting that active farmer rules must not exclude them, is effectively aligning CAP law with this long-established body of evidence.
Three Very Different Groups – Often Confused as One
In the Greek discussion, however, the legitimate anger against pseudo-farmers easily spills over into a general suspicion of anyone who is not “100% farmer” on paper. The result is a blurred picture where three distinct categories get mixed:
- Armchair farmers
People or entities holding entitlements, often with minimal or no genuine production, risk, labour or capital invested. They may rely on historical rights, passive land ownership or contractual constructions that exploit gaps in control systems. - Pluriactive farmers with substantial holdings
Farmers who cultivate significant areas or manage serious livestock herds, organise labour and take real production and market risk – but also have off-farm income (salary, small business, professional activity) to stabilise their household economy. - Very small or “hobby” producers
Micro-holdings whose main logic may be self-consumption, tradition or lifestyle. Here, the policy question is not moral but economic: do direct payments to such units deliver the intended objective of income support and public goods?
The CAP – and EU law more broadly – pushes us to protect public money from the first group, think carefully about the third, but it does not ask us to punish the second.
Where everything is decided is here: in how each Member State defines the genuine/active farmer in its national framework and how it implements controls.
Eligibility Rules as Political Economy, Not Just Technique
Eligibility for direct payments is not a purely technocratic issue. It is political economy in action. Definitions, thresholds and control methods redistribute real money between:
- large and small farms,
- full-time and pluriactive households,
- crop and livestock sectors,
- different regions and socio-professional groups.
Several dynamics are at play:
- Pressure from EU auditors and Ministries of Finance
They tend to favour stricter, easily verifiable criteria (e.g. income thresholds, tax codes, minimum output levels) to protect the budget and reduce the risk of financial corrections. - Pressure from professional organisations
Some groups of “professional” farmers push for definitions that ring-fence support around themselves, using the rhetoric of “real farmers versus civil servants with land”. In many cases this is justified; in others, it drifts into exclusion of pluriactive peers who deliver real production. - Administrative convenience
Paying agencies and administrations are tempted by criteria that are simple to code in IT systems (e.g. NACE codes, social security categories), even when they do not capture the multidimensional reality of farming activity very well. - Path dependence
The legacy of entitlements and historical references is strong. Even as the debate moves towards “genuine farmers”, older patterns of rent distribution exert influence, quietly resisting change.
Within this landscape, it is easy for pluriactive farmers to be collateral damage of attempts to close the system to fraud and abuse.
Designing the “Genuine Farmer”: Principles for 2023–2027 and Beyond
If we take seriously both EU law and empirical evidence, several design principles emerge for the definition of the genuine/active farmer at national level:
- Base the definition on observable economic activity, not on ideology
Criteria should be linked to production, turnover, livestock units, labour input and investment, rather than to a moralised view of what a “true farmer” looks like. - Combine farm and tax data smartly
Using tax and social security information is legitimate, but it should not automatically disqualify those whose non-farm income crosses a certain line. The test should be whether agriculture is a real, organised activity, not whether it is the only activity. - Recognise pluriactivity explicitly
National rules can – and arguably should – state that having off-farm employment or business activity is compatible with being a genuine farmer, provided the farm meets minimum thresholds of scale and effort. - Target by farm type, not only by legal status
Tailor thresholds and indicators to different sectors (intensive horticulture, extensive livestock, permanent crops) rather than applying a one-size-fits-all standard that favours some production systems structurally over others. - Link “professional” status to responsibility, not just to labels
A “professional farmer” should be one who assumes entrepreneurial risk and management responsibility for the holding, not simply one who holds a specific administrative status.
These choices are fully compatible with EU rules – if anything, they are closer to the spirit of Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 and the Commission’s approach in assessing CAP Strategic Plans.
The Day After 2027: Beyond Entitlements, Towards Legitimacy
After 2027, the CAP architecture is expected to change further. Possible phasing-out of entitlements, more targeted basic income support, reinforced focus on genuine farmers, and differentiated support for young farmers, “professional” farms and small holdings.
None of this, however, implies a blanket ban on pluriactivity. The direction is towards:
- better targeting of support to those whose livelihoods materially depend on farming,
- while keeping the door open to pluriactive households that sustain rural territories, maintain landscapes and keep production going.
The real risk is different. In the name of tightening definitions, we could design eligibility rules that accelerate rural exit– especially in marginal livestock and mountainous areas where practically every serious holding relies on at least one off-farm income stream.
The political question is therefore not whether pluriactive farmers “deserve” to exist. They already are the backbone of rural demography in many regions. The question is whether CAP rules will recognise them as such or treat them as a “problem to be cleaned up”.
From “Are They Excluded?” to “What Do We Want to Reward?”
If we accept three basic facts:
- EU legislation explicitly warns against definitions of active farmer that exclude pluriactive and part-time farmers as such,EUR-Lex
- International literature sees pluriactivity as a central resilience strategy for farm households, not a pathology,OECD
- And real-world data show that without pluriactive farmers, many regions would lose a critical mass of production and people,
then the underlying dilemma shifts.
It is not “full-time professionals versus pluriactive farmers”.
It is “active farmers versus fictitious beneficiaries”.
For Greece – and for any Member State with similar structures – the strategic task is to build a framework that:
- closes the net around armchair farmers and non-agricultural entities capturing rents,
- recognises pluriactivity institutionally as part of the solution for resilience and generational renewal,
- channels more resources to young farmers, professional farms and genuinely productive holdings,
- without creating a new class of “invisible” farmers: people who work normally, take real risk and keep livestock and land in use, but are coded administratively as “pluriactive” and treated almost as suspects.
A CAP That Rewards Work, Risk and Production
Ultimately, the question “Are pluriactive farmers excluded from the new CAP?” is probably the wrong one.
The more honest – and politically relevant – question is:
Do we want a CAP that rewards real work, risk and production – regardless of whether the farmer has a second source of income – or a CAP that protects an outdated stereotype of who a farmer is allowed to be?
European legislation provides us with the space to design intelligent, evidence-based solutions. The political economy of direct payments, and the eligibility rules we choose to implement, will determine whether we use that space wisely – or ideologically.
For a country like Greece, where livestock and permanent crops in difficult areas already depend heavily on pluriactive households, the stakes are clear. Getting the definition of the genuine farmer right is not only a matter of compliance with Brussels. It is a decision about who stays in the countryside, who leaves, and who gets to be seen – and supported – as a farmer at all.
If we remove farmers, farms and animals like these from eligibility, we don’t just lose subsidies – we lose production, know-how and living rural communities.