First steps to simpler CAP

EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan kicked off his CAP simplification campaign this week by announcing changes which can be implemented this year.

The Commission intends:

n to accept a simplified approach to identification of some specific types of permanent grassland in the land parcel identification system (LPIS).

n to accept that Member States only need to map declared Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs: farmers with more than 15 hectares of arable land and less than 75% under grass must have at least 5% of the arable land as EFA in 2015).

n to allow flexibility on identification of EFAs (concerns hedges or wooded strips and trees in line, and allow hedges or wooded strips with gaps of up to four metres.

n to accept a limited buffer between the boundary and the EFA, as regards the implementation of adjacent EFA

n to allow that a missing EFA may be compensated by another EFA, even if this EFA has not been declared.

The Commissioner also said pure leguminous crops (such as alfalfa) should not be considered by definition as permanent grassland after five years.

And the period of declaration of land lying fallow as EFA, and the period under agri-environmental commitments, will not be taken into account for the calculation of the five-year period for permanent grassland.

Commissioner Hogan will announce further simplification amendments soon after the summer break, intended in areas (such as the young farmers scheme, voluntary coupled support and the EU’s Integrated Administration and Control System, which should become applicable in claim year 2017 at the latest.

There will be a further review of greening next year.