Payment plans are at odds

Farmers get disadvantaged area payments, from national governments and the EU, for maintaining parts of the countryside where agricultural production is more difficult.

They receive a much larger amount of direct payments from the EU for much the same reason — to support farming by stabilising income, ensuring the longer term viability of farms and making them less vulnerable to fluctuations in prices, thereby protecting the countryside through links with cross-compliance.

Unfortunately, both are the playthings of politicians, and the divergent paths the two payments are taking illustrate the fickleness of farmers’ political masters.