Cap reform options must be carefully considered

The production of milk, beef, lamb, and crops on Irish farms make an essential and valuable contribution to the Irish economy, not just in regional rural areas, but nationally for the country.

Anything that potentially jeopardises the level of production from farms has to be examined and scrutinised carefully, to try and predict its impact.

There has been much discussion and debate over the last three years about the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, since the EU commissioner Dacian Ciolos first put forward his reform proposals. Ciolos’s proposals involved paying every farmer the same flat rate Single Farm Payment per hectare.