EU’s flat rate payments system ‘too simplistic’, warn Irish farm groups

OUTPUT-BASED farm payments are a thing of the past, to be replaced by a controversial “flat rate” per-hectare payment model, EU Commissioner for Agriculture Dacian Ciolos confirmed at yesterday’s Irish Farmer’s Association (IFA) annual general meeting.

While the visiting EU Commissioner said there is still time to debate some issues, farmers would have no choice but to accept the new payment model, plus the allocation of 30% of the total farm payment for ecological, or “greening”, issues.

Mr Ciolos said: “We cannot link any element of farm payments to production. From its talks with the WTO [World Trade Organisation], the European Union has already committed to not link any aspect of farm payment to production.

“Any attempt to link these two would see the payment eliminated altogether. Member states have flexibility in areas such as defining the regions for farm payments, but we cannot go forward with the historical payment system.”

Irish farm groups have voiced their opposition.

IFA president John Bryan said: “The flat-rate system is too simplistic and takes no account of major differences in the productive capacity of land or levels of investment and commitment by producers.

“We must have flexibility to implement a payment model linked to the current structure that maintains support for productive farmers, and allows a more gradual adjustment over a much longer timeframe.”

Mr Bryan also said the Commission’s proposals for a compulsory and separate “greening” payment would impose additional costs and bureaucracy and interfere with farmers’ production decisions.

“Irish farmers already meet high standards in this area and greening must be incorporated into the existing cross-compliance measures,” he said.

The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) warned the EU’s move towards flat-rate payments would cause a “land bubble”, adding to the trend of landowners taking back lands they had rented to maximise farm payments. The ICMSA said the reforms are “far too revolutionary and detrimental to the future of the Irish family farm.

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said the flat-rate system was potentially damaging to the Irish model and said he would continue to push for a greening model that suited Irish interests. In calling for greater flexibility for member states to implement payment models appropriate to their own systems, Mr Coveney said the same principle could be applied to Commission proposals for CAP “greening”, which he felt were excessively bureaucratic.

“The CAP reform proposals from the Commission contain many positive elements and interesting ideas,” Mr Coveney said. “There are, however, many details still to be finalised, and many important issues remain to be resolved.”

Responding to concerns over the choice of 2014 as a reference year for future farm payments, Mr Ciolos said that only those farmers who received Single Farm Payments in 2011 will be eligible for payments in the new CAP.

He also said that the proposal to use 2014 as a reference year is a bid to wipe the slate clean and to create a more transparent, equitable model than the old payments system.

Picture: John Bryan, IFA President