European Network of Agricultural Social Protection Systems
ENASP
Here is an excerpt from the statutes: Within the EU, a number of countries have separate agricultural social security schemes or regulations dedicated to farmers and rural populations. At the European level, these organizations have to give proof of the cogency of this specificity, and to defend this differentiated approach to social security of farming and rural populations. The organizations are and will stay invested together, in order to maintain and develop the European network between all of them. With this network the agricultural social security schemes will affirm the bonds which link them together at the EU level. The network is thought firstly as a forum facilitating better mutual understanding among all of its members and secondly as a group that represents European separate social security systems, dealing with farming and rural cases of a specific social nature and recognized as such by the European Union. The network is open to additional members or observers (...)
ID: 100063234453-93
Lobbying Activity
Response to Generational renewal in agriculture
11 Jul 2025
About the European Network of Agricultural Social Protection Systems (ENASP) ENASP represents member organizations of five Member States of the EU Austria (SVS), Finland (MELA), France (MSA), Germany (SVLFG) and Poland (KRUS). These organizations cover the entire field of social security: health, retirement, accidents at work and occupational diseases, family and services. They represent more than 10 million beneficiaries and 56.7 billion euros of social benefits paid per year. ENASP on the initiative EU agricultural policy strategy to promote generational renewal The European Network of Agricultural Social Protection Systems (ENASP) welcomes the initiative launched by the European Commission to develop a strategy for generational renewal in agriculture. ENASP particularly appreciates the initiatives explicit reference to healthcare, especially the inclusion of mental health, as these aspects influence the efficiency and attractiveness of the agricultural profession and the strengthening of rural areas. The younger generation of farmers demonstrates a high willingness to innovate and adapt: they increasingly rely on modern technologies, digital solutions and sustainable farming methods, fostering a forward-looking development of agriculture. Moreover, their heightened awareness of occupational safety and the conscious use of modern protective measures contribute to reduced accident risks and improved work organization. Their good physical condition also helps minimize long-term health consequences following accidents. In the long run, this younger generation not only ensures farm succession but also supports the stability of regional food production and the EUs food sovereignty. In ENASP member countries, farmers are on average younger than in many other European states. According to the Eurostat Farm Structure Survey 2020, less than 20% of farm managers in these countries are aged 65 or older, which is significantly below the EU average. One possible reason for this positive age structure is that social protection systems in the agricultural sector are not merely viewed as classic insurance coverage, but as active tools for facilitating a healthy and secure generational transition for example, through targeted support services such as accompanied succession seminars or coachings for farms. ENASP member organizations also offer a broad range of tailor-made-services that respond directly to the specific needs of people working in the green sector. These include for example: Farm relief services in the event of illness, maternity or care needs, ensuring the continued operation of the farm - in Finland and in France, even enabling relief for vacation purposes; Sector specific psychological crisis support, counseling, and health promotion programs to strengthen mental health and resilience; Occupational safety and prevention counseling, integrated into daily farm operations. These services are specifically designed to meet the realities of the agricultural sector and contribute to making the profession more attractive in the long term. They play a key role in safeguarding rural areas and improving quality of life in agriculturally-based regions. The experiences and models from the ENASP countries clearly show that a sector-specific social protection system not only offers protection, but also actively strengthens the agricultural profession - in health, social and economic terms. From the ENASP's perspective, it is therefore essential that EU agricultural policy explicitly recognizes and promotes sector-specific social protection as well as occupational health and safety as integral components of a successful and sustainable strategy to promote the attractiveness of the profession and thus the renewal of generations.
Read full responseResponse to Managing EU climate risks
12 Jan 2024
ENASP represents organizations of five Member States of the EU Austria (SVS), Finland (MELA), France (MSA), Germany (SVLFG) and Poland (KRUS). These organizations cover the entire field of social security: health, retirement, accidents at work and occupational diseases, family and services. They represent more than 10 million beneficiaries and 56.7 billion euros of social benefits paid per year. Agricultural social protection systems can be particularly affected by climate risks, as their insured and their work are very sensitive to weather conditions. Problems, challenges and impacts: Heavy weather events such as too much rain have already led to floods that have washed away harvests and existences. Increased heat particularly affects people who regularly work outdoors; extreme weather also lead to yield and quality losses and even conflicts over water utilisation. The impact of climate change also affects health and safety in the workplace and require an adaptation of prevention measures, both at behavioural and relational level. There are new or increased incidence of harmful organisms and new infectious diseases; increased risk of certain occupational diseases such as skin cancer; a growing danger to health in the handling of hazardous substances (e.g. new storage technologies). Statutory social insurance schemes are characterised by communities that finance their benefits in a spirit of solidarity. The effects of climate change can lead to the performance of agricultural communities being impaired to such an extent that solidarity-based financing can no longer be guaranteed. For example, despite the measures already taken, it cannot be ruled out that forestry will no longer be economically viable in the future. If more and more foresters give up forestry, the new burdens will follow this development, but old burdens (e.g. occupational pensions from previous years) will remain. In view of the fact that individual risk groups in accident insurance (such as foresters) will decline or even disappear, this could initially only be absorbed by the solidarity of all members of an accident insurance (i.e. also farmers and gardeners). However, this is only possible if the consequences of climate change do not affect other areas of agriculture at the same time. In the long term, there is therefore a considerable risk that the solidarity of all accident insurance members will be overstretched. Another highlight is that agricultural businesses are also being abandoned, partly due to social pressure and transformation of the green sector. Proposal of measures: If the transition to climate-friendly agriculture is to succeed in the long term, people and their personal circumstances must take centre stage. Political demands must also be formulated for society as a whole and must go beyond ecology and climate protection and also concern the economy and the psycho-social dimensions. Different actions already being implemented must be further developed in order to help rural and agricultural populations. These actions comprise targeted support for farmers in agro-ecological transition, health promotion, prevention of mental health, promotion of healthy products etc. Furthermore, in addition to existing occupations, new job profiles, such as those arising from new technologies, must also be taken into account. In addition to behaviour-oriented measures, health promotion must also focus on relationship-oriented measures. In this case, the aim is to develop sustainable strategies for the healthcare system and to adapt health policy framework conditions. Conclusion: EU needs efficient social insurance systems that can respond to climate-related challenges with suitable preventive and in some cases sectors tailor-made measures and strategies. This is the only way to ensure that social security, health and labour productivity are maintained, protected and made resilient.
Read full responseResponse to A comprehensive approach to mental health
15 Feb 2023
About the European Network of Agricultural Social Protection Systems (ENASP): ENASP represents member organizations of five Member States of the EU Austria (SVS), Finland (MELA), France (MSA), Germany (SVLFG) and Poland (KRUS). These organizations cover the entire field of social security: health, retirement, accidents at work and occupational diseases, family and services. They represent more than 10 million beneficiaries and 56.7 billion euros of social benefits paid per year. On the initiative A comprehensive approach to mental health: ENASP welcomes the initiative. The influences and effects described there are also clearly noticeable in the green professions. The intensity of uncertainty and its expression ranges from malaise linked to a deteriorated physical and/or mental state to suicide. Studies, such as those regularly carried out by our French member MSA to understand the nature and development of psychosocial risks and suicide phenomena in the agricultural population or to identify warning signs, are very useful and should also be initiated at EU level. This is the basis and the key for prevention and treatment offers, which have to be individual and tailored to the life situation in order to find acceptance and be used effectively. The organizations of ENASP already offer their insured a wide range of tailor-made services for mental health in the "green sector", which are constantly evaluated and shared. Various offers are provided, such as respite care, suicide prevention units, platforms that connect people in difficulty with clinical psychologists, stress management or self-esteem sessions, as well as face-to-face and digital counselling services, group sessions, courses and crisis support. Such actions are very useful and should also be supported at EU level. An expansion infrastructure plays an important role for rural areas. Personal and especially digital services for mental health should be available to people in every life situation at all times. This should be promoted by the EC. The years of experience also show: Acquiring skills and providing support and treatment in dealing with mental illness plays just as important a role in mental health as early detection and prevention. An important key to this is social acceptance and cognition of mental illness. The EC should therefore work through campaigns to ensure that mental illnesses are not trivialized or tabooed. Children and adolescents have suffered particularly from the pandemic. It should be noted that treatment and support services for this target group are rare and even more so in rural areas. Shortage Professions like doctors for child and youth psychiatry should therefore be strengthened and promoted. Therefore it would be important to start here and strengthen the mental health of these young generations for a resilient society. In Austria, for example, many important priorities have been set in health promotion and public health. There are initiatives and projects on supporting psychosocial health and social participation and cohesion through resilient, health-oriented communities (e.g. Caring Communities, Healthy Communities/Districts). Health professionals are supported and same applies to the expansion of psychosocial services in the health system. In Germany, the Occupational Health and Safety Act requires employers to carry out an assessment of mental stress as part of the general risk assessment. Our member SVLFG offers its insured in this context a box Good work in small enterprises, which contains everything that agricultural entrepreneurs need to carry out and document the risk as-sessment of mental stress in their enterprise. A small outline of national success models shows that valuable aspects of these could be collected and transferred to the EU level to be supported jointly through EU campaigns. ENASP Secretariat
Read full responseResponse to EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work [2021-2027]
25 Nov 2020
The European Network of Agricultural Protection Systems (ENASP) welcomes the Commission's consultation on the Roadmap EU Strategic Framework for Health and Safety at Work [2021-2027]. The ENASP agrees with the EU Commission that a strong social Europe requires continuous improvement towards safer and healthier work for all.
The ENASP would like to point out the special situation of about ten million people working in agriculture in the EU. These people are affected to a high degree, because agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries. Experts speak of several thousand fatal accidents at work every year. There is still a considerable need to investigate the reasons for this and to learn more about why in many places in Europe agriculture is continually lagging behind the improvements in occupational safety and health that have been achieved in other important sectors of the economy. Although initial European research efforts in this area are underway, for example within the framework of the SACURIMA COST Action, these should be expanded. National and EUROSTAT statistics show that agriculture is uniformly considered one of the most dangerous occupations throughout Europe, but also shows great differences in national death, injury and illness rates. Initial research results of the SACURIMA COST Action reveal an extremely wide variation in the different statistics on accidents in agriculture. It must be assumed that the actual accident figures are much higher than those shown in the statistics. In the area of responsibility of the German agricultural accident insurance institution SVLFG only, there were more than 68,000 notifiable accidents at work in 2019, i.e. those that led to an incapacity to work of at least four days.
The agricultural sector is particularly affected by the COVID 19 pandemic, especially because most work cannot be restricted or done via home office. In addition, millions of seasonal workers work in agriculture, who are exposed to a particularly high risk of infection, among other things due to the working conditions and communal housing.
Like the EU Commission, the ENASP expects that this initiative will contribute to improving health and safety at work and, among other things, help prevent workers from suffering accidents at work and contracting preventable work-related illnesses. ENASP members are equally convinced that the initiative will also improve productivity and help to avoid unnecessary health costs, such as medical or rehabilitation costs, and reduce public health expenditure, thus improving the sustainability of social security systems.
It should be noted that the ENASP members represent agricultural social security systems that have been successfully engaged in preventive work for decades. The values are not only in line with European
The EU Commission rightly states that the correct and full application and enforcement of existing rules is important to prevent the occurrence of occupational accidents and work-related diseases in the EU. It rightly points out that this is a particular challenge for micro and small enterprises. Such enterprises are found in many EU Member States. Their large number alone illustrates the scale of the challenge of implementing effective labour inspection and enforcement. In this context, we stress the importance of implementing an agricultural prevention culture, as propagated by the ISSA with its KRUS-led Agriculture Section within the framework of Vision Zero.
Finally, the ENASP points out that the steadily worsening climate crisis is leading to new threats to occupational safety, particularly in agriculture and forestry. Increasingly unpredictable extreme weather conditions and the spread of new animal and plant diseases also threaten people working in agriculture.
Considering also this development, the ENASP welcomes the intention of the EU Commission to create a political framework to improve safety and health at work at both national and EU level.
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