Winning public support for the Common Agricultural Policy is
crucial if sufficient funding is to be channelled into farming and
the rural economy post-2013.
Addressing a
European parliament workshop on the future of the CAP, which
will face its next reform in three years' time, agriculture
commissioner
Mariann Fischer Boel said the days of market management were
over.
"If the general public thinks for one moment that we have
something like this in mind, support for the CAP will collapse and
I can guarantee the sharks will gather to grab what they can of the
CAP budget."
Mrs Fischer Boel was adamant that winning and keeping support
meant designing a CAP with clear goals that the public could sign
up to, even if this meant a redistribution of funds among member
states.
But there was still a need for a strong CAP, she said, designed
to boost agricultural production, ensure good land management,
improve rural services and address climate change. And Mrs Fischer
Boel insisted that a recently-leaked report talking of substantial
cuts in CAP spending post-2013 (News, 30 October) was already "in
the bin".
Country Land and Business
Association policy director Allan Buckwell also addressed the
meeting, stating that the EU Commission needed to focus on future
priorities rather than cost. "To start cutting the budget and
redistributing it and only then looking at transforming the CAP is
the reverse of what we should be doing."
Prof Buckwell said the impending reform would have to address
the legitimacy of the single farm payment. Justifications ranged
from income support, to compensation for higher standards, to
environmental payments, to a payment for food security.
Any moves to cut SFPs would have to be handled carefully since
they accounted for 36% of farm income on average throughout the EU.
"But there are going to be cuts in these payments, so they need to
be transformed into something that helps with agricultural
adjustment."
Overall, the MEPs at the workshop welcomed a retention of the
CAP post-2013, but it needed to address a range of issues,
including climate change, food security and water management.
* For more on the future of SFPs see
Phil Clarke's Business Blog
