Farmers can manage without CAP says Britain

EU farmers will be able to manage, even if import tariffs are scrapped in WTO talks next spring, and demolition of the Common Agricultural Policy continues until no subsidy or protection is left.

So says the UK government, which has set a target of the second half of the next decade for its brave new world in which production-linked support and the Single Farm Payment have effectively disappeared and EU farmers are treated no differently from other sectors of the economy.

The report, commissioned by Ministers Gordon Brown and Margaret Beckett, says the experience of countries such as Sweden, Australia and New Zealand suggests that EU agriculture would successfully adjust to lower support, provided the change is carefully managed.