Coughlan objects to farm payment cap

AGRICULTURE Minister Mary Coughlan has told her fellow EU ministers she is not in favour of most of the European Commission’s plans to change the union’s annual €48.5 billion farm budget, including capping the amount of money any one farmer could receive.

The only proposal she welcomed was an increase in the amount of milk dairy farmers could produce. She believed her request for a 3% increase in Ireland’s quota would be granted for next April.

She joined the British and Germans in opposing a proposal to reduce payments to anybody getting more than €100,000 a year in EU aid. Beef baron Larry Goodman is Ireland’s largest recipient. while Britain’s royal family is among that country’s biggest beneficiaries.

Ms Coughlan said that the average single farm payment in Ireland was €5,000 and there were only 10 very big Irish recipients. “If there is a ceiling placed on it there is a danger there could be a floor too,” she argued.

Last year more than a third of the €1.7 billion that came to Ireland went to 10 major agri-business concerns, including the Irish Dairy Board which received more than €76 million in 2005; Kerry Ingredients, Bailie Foods and Glanbia each received about €10m.

Agriculture Commissioner Marian Fischer Boel, who made her “health check” proposals last week, said she will reconsider the cap on payments following arguments that it would encourage big farmers to break up their holdings to ensure they came in under any ceiling.

Yesterday’s meeting in Brussels was the first between member states since the proposals were unveiled. Most countries, including Ireland, gave their initial reaction to the proposals, and there will be another discussion on it in March.

Ms Coughlan said she hoped they would reach agreement on the plan under the French presidency in the second half of next year. The French are the biggest beneficiaries of the Common Agriculture Policy and Ireland is normally in agreement with their positions.

“This will be a very different document by the time we are finished with it”, said Ms Coughlan yesterday during a break in the meeting.

She is against increasing the amount of farm payments diverted to rural development projects from 5% at present to 13%, and to plans to change the way entitlements are calculated. Currently these are based on the last three years money farmers got under the old scheme, but the commission says there should be a flat rate applied across the board.

Ms Coughlan was especially opposed to any attempt to force farmers to increase the amount of money that had to be foregone and put it into the rural development fund.

The new member states, however, favour the proposal, and while she agreed that money spent on rural development could end up in farmers’ pockets she did not believe it would benefit Irish farmers at this time.