Farmers vow to rise up against CAP reform threat

Farmers should lead a mass protest across the EU to protest at demands for new talks on the Common Agricultural Policy, it was claimed today.

Britain and France are at loggerheads over Tony Blair’s demands for the 2002 deal on agricultural produce to be renegotiated.

But Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) deputy president Ruaidhri Deasy warned today that any backtracking on CAP would lead to “total and absolute uproar“.

“Farmers will not stand for it,” he said. “I will lead a pan-European protest in which the IFA and all other EU farming organisations will shake the EU to its foundations.”

Britain won a €4.5m cut on its contributions to the EU in 1984 because it gained little from agricultural subsidies.

However Mr Blair said he is only to willing to consider France’s demands to reduce the rebate if talks on CAP are reopened.

Mr Deasy, whose father Rickard lead a famous 30,000-strong farmers protest to the Dail in 1966, said: “Farmers across Europe will unite to fight this just like Irish farmers united in the 1960s.”

A 20-day sit-in outside Agricultural Minister Charlie Haughey’s office finally secured formal negotiating rights with government.

Mr Deasy said the 2002 CAP deal is legally-binding and could be defended in the European courts.

The IFA official, whose organisation represents 85,000 farmers, also accused Mr Blair of posturing to his urban power base.

Mr Deasy added: “For the EU to survive in the years ahead it must be able to produce as much as it consumes.

“A secure supply of safe food, jobs, alternative sources of fuel, raw materials and a clean environment are key components in any sustainable model for our future.

“A strong farm and rural sector is therefore vital for all of us. It is high time we woke up and recognised that fact.

“Otherwise our leaders are sleepwalking us as farmers onto a path of collapse and poverty.”