SFP under pressure already

THE case looks stronger than ever for banking next December’s Single Farm Payment (SFP) in a separate account marked, “not to be used for day-to-day farming expenditure.”

More and more, the SFP looks like a temporary payment, designed by the European Commission as a bridging mechanism to wean the beef industry off the coupled subsidy it has become used to.

The businesslike way to deal with that was illustrated last week, when Greencore started weaning itself off the EU sugar industry’s heavy subsidisation, by announcing the closure in March of its Carlow factory.