Forget all you ever heard about one more cow, one more acre under the plough

SINCE Ray McSharry’s CAP Reform in the early 1990s, production-related support payments for farmers have largely influenced land use.

Enterprises were chosen and operated to maximise premia. More and more, returns from the market failed to cover production costs, but premia payments kept farming going.

Now, EU support payments are no longer linked to production, under the decoupling system. The new advice to farmers is produce for profit only, supply the quality and quantity which the market requires, and measure success or failure by the profit margin. That’s the same advice for both the winners and the losers in a new direct payments system which is stacked with anomalies.