Coveney confident CAP can work to defend best interests of farmers

AGRICULTURE Minister Simon Coveney is confident that the EU’s new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) can still be fine-tuned to defend the best interests of farmers.

Many Irish farmers have been rocked by the EU draft proposal document for CAP confirming leaks of a swing away from ‘historical’ production-based farm payments towards land ownership-based ‘flat’ payments.

However, having met with fellow agriculture ministers in Luxembourg, Mr Coveney believes there will be sufficient EU-wide momentum to achieve flexibility in the localised distribution of farm payments and rural funding to better suit the realities of Irish farming.

He said: “The fact that Europe’s agriculture ministers now all agree that the CAP revisions will not be agreed before the first six months of 2013, during the Irish presidency of agriculture, presents a huge political opportunity and political challenge for Ireland.

“That gives us 18 months to work towards the final outcome of how the new CAP will be framed. We have already started that process. I have just had bilateral talks with a number of ministers, and I have been invited to several other capitals for further talks. People are very conscious that Ireland will most likely be in the presidency when these talks reach their conclusion.

He added: “There are three or four issues upon which we are quite happy to trade to get the flexibility we require on the Single Farm Payment (SFP) to suit the Irish context. As it is currently worded, the flat-based payment system would involve a massive transfer of funds from one farming area in Ireland to another.

“I have made my position quite clear that such a change would be hugely disruptive to Irish farming. We accept the need for change, but we have mechanisms other than the SFP to support less advantaged areas.

“We want mechanisms that are about sustainable food production, and that suit current Irish farming structures. Thankfully, France, Italy, Spain, Austria and other countries have similar concerns. They are all calling for flexibility, which was the buzz word in Luxembourg this week.”

The current CAP proposal document would see around 58% of total farm payments being distributed on a flat basis from day one of its introduction — made up of 30% for greening, plus 40% of the remaining 70% being paid out for land ownership.

However Mr Coveney and other like-minded EU ministers want a greater element of reward for food production and a staggered introduction of the eventual new payment system.

Mr Coveney was also among the group of ministers stating that no agreement could be made on Pillar 1 (principally the SFP and other farm payments) without greater clarity on Pillar 2 (AEOS, REPS and rural development funds such as LEADER).

The CAP document refers to “objective criteria” in the redistribution of the Pillar 2 funds. These criteria could see funds currently being used to develop farms and rural communities and projects diverted to other member states.

Mr Coveney said that Pillar 2 funds were of core strategic importance to Ireland, and were essential to the planning of farm programmes. He said that he was very conscious of the need to defend programmes such as AOES, REPS and LEADER funding.

“The proposal, which would impose uniform national or regional payment rates, would cause massive transfers in Ireland from the more productive farms to more marginal and lower productivity holdings. We will be looking for the maximum flexibility for member states to design the payment model that suits their own conditions, provided of course this does not interfere with competition.”

He welcomed measures encouraging more active participation of young farmers, and said that there was broad agreement with the principles guiding new greening initiatives.