Le paiement redistributif et le plafonnement des aides directes : deux outils de la PAC favorables aux petites exploitations agricoles françaises ?

Successive reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have profoundly changed the way public supports are allocated to farms. The issue of targeting direct aids between farm types has always been the subject of particular attention, both by the public authorities (the Member States seeking to improve the return of their budget), agricultural organizations (which defend through the orientation of the support a particular model of agricultural development) than farmers themselves (who are influenced in their strategic orientations by the way in which subsidies are granted). Focusing on the case of France, this paper proposes a reflection on two particular instruments of the CAP that intend to have a redistributive impact on direct payments. The first, implemented from 2015 in France, corresponds to the redistributive payment allocated on the first 52 hectares. The second concerns the degressivity and the ceiling of subsidies, in accordance with the proposals made by the European Commission on 1 June 2018. Based on individual data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) and several possible implementation modalities for these two devices, some simulations are conducted to shed light on the question of their impacts. The results point out how much redistribution intensity is sensitive to the fine options retained (level of thresholds, exemption, targeting of funds collected, etc.).