Farm leaders condemn CAP reforms as Greens say changes are vital
However, the Irish Cattle Sheep Farmers Association welcomed the CAP proposals. General secretary Eddie Punch said the Fischler reforms “represent the policy of the future and that the challenge facing Ireland is to embrace the change and seek to proactively influence the detail in the best interests of Irish farmers”.
Macra na Feirme, the voice of young Irish farmers condemned the CAP plan as a landlord’s charter.
Speaking from Brussels where Agriculture Commissioner, Franz Fischler, announced the much-leaked document yesterday afternoon, Macra’s national president Seamus Phelan said the proposals to decouple direct payments from production would make it very difficult for new people to get into agriculture in the years ahead.
New entrants will not have the single payment entitlements that will in future attach to the land instead of production and will be forced to pay high prices to farmers who want to get out of agriculture.
The real winners from the new system would ultimately be non-farming landowners, he said.
With only 11% of farmers under 35 and 45% over 55 introducing further barriers to entry would be disastrous for the long-term sustainability of farming, he concluded.
ICMSA president Pat O’Rourke warned “the cuts in direct payments of up to 20% will further and substantially reduce incomes of the cattle and beef sector”.
“In particular, the proposal to introduce stringent restrictions on exports in the beef sector is a major concern and one that Ireland will have to completely oppose,” said Mr O’Rourke. “And the introduction of farm audits will replace one lot of red tape with another,” he said.
He added: “The fact that the commission has made no proposals to change the milk sector does not remove the need for the commission to introduce increased levels of support in the milk sector in the aftermath of the US Farm Bill.”
Tom Parlon, Minister of State for Agriculture dismissed the proposals saying the CAP review was a “major departure from the Agenda 2000 policy which was negotiated only a couple of years ago. It is essential Irish farmers do not lose out as a result of this review”, he said.
Meanwhile the country’s biggest farm body, the IFA, lashed out at the moves by the EU to rewrite Agenda 2000.
President John Dillon said: “The deep cuts proposed are a breach of faith with farmers by the European Commission. He dismissed claims by the commissioner that the reforms would be good for Irish farmers.
Initial assessment of the strategy suggests a loss of 300m annually of EU transfers to Ireland and to Irish farmers which cannot be regarded as positive in an true meaning of the word, said Mr Dillon.
Green MEP Patricia McKenna welcomed the general direction taken by the European Commission in the CAP mid-term review published today.
She called on farmers, to welcome the changes outlined as an absolute
necessity to put a halt to the severe environmental impacts of intensive farming and address consumer concerns
regarding food safety and animal welfare.
“The commission’s position paper is a timely and welcome step in the right direction and it should be followed up as soon as possible with concrete proposals,” she said.
Ms McKenna also called on the EU to ban subsidies on live exports.
