CAP plan ‘favours sofa producers’

THE proposals by EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler to reform the Common Agricultural Policy would create a layer of “sofa producers”, Macra Na Feirme has warned.

Sofa producers are individuals who receive direct payments without actually farming.

Macra president Seamus Phelan said it is clear the new area-based payments would go to the landowner even if the land is being farmed by someone else.