EU leaders must ensure payments reach farmers, warn agri groups

EUROPEAN agri-food stakeholders need to examine the proposed reform of the Common Agricultural Policy to ensure that farm payments reach farmers who are actually producing food.

This is just one of the fundamental points which Irish farmer groups such as the IFA and ICMSA and Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney are expected to make to EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos during a series of meetings and briefings in Dublin today.

Speaking to RTÉ radio yesterday, Mr Coveney said he is opposed to the way the EU’s new CAP model will pay farmers for the land they own during a set “base year”. A lot of agri-food sector speculation suggests that year might be either 2012, 2013 or 2014.