The European Commissioner for the Environment has said consideration should be given to re-branding the CAP as a Common Agricultural and Environmental Policy.

Janez Potocnik called for a “very significant and profound greening of the CAP” as he addressed a Forum for the Future of Agriculture session on 16 March.

“Much more environmental integration will be needed if the CAP is to support a broader environmental benefit to society,” he said.

“The European public is increasingly concerned about how we spend the European budget and also about the environment in general; and in particular they also worry about the impact of agriculture on the environment.

“Eurobarometer results show that 1 in 3 Europeans think that promoting respect for environment should be one of the priorities of EU agriculture policy.

“What does this mean? It means that the CAP needs to be able to provide environmental public goods and services. We need to put forward the proposals to make this happen and let CAP deliver them to the European public. This means digging deep into the substance of the CAP – we need much more than just green window dressing.”

What do you reckon? Any alternatives?

    No. The Common Agricultural Policy should be seperate from an Environmental Policy. The farm payments should, however, only be made in respect of agricultural practice which is environmentally friendly. This would allow the Cap to concentrate on producing a good agricultural industry in Europe.

    It appears, however, that there is no other funding for the environmental issues other than that of the CAP. This means that agriculture payments will have to be carefully curtailed to finance the Environment Policy (nothing new there). There are other factors which may be taken into account when considering the environment, such as; industry, housing, roads, tourism, sporting activities, climate, erosion.....

HAT

 Yes Isabel the fuel CAP should be changed, I take it your referring to the John Deere with a dodgy fuel tank in Talking Tackle??

 No ok, on a serious note over here we have an environmental scheme that runs in parallel with all other farm aid from Brussels. It works extremely well and has make big changes in the way we look at the management of the farm. It started in 1995 and will continue until at least 2015, we were fearful of the restrictions at first but turned out to be no more than good practice.

In reality we don't mind what they call it, or us, as long as we can farm and keep earning a decent living, which is becoming more and more difficult in the current economic climate.  Below cost food is a major issue, instigated by the supermarkets.

Renaming CAP without a campaign to sell it to the people and show what it does in a better light will not mske any difference to the oft expressed view that it is a very expensive support tax to keep farmers happy. this is going to be critical when we wakeup to the financial reality that our current way of living is to expensive and cuts will have to be made. 

How about FSSP ?  Food supply + security policy. Or just FSP......Food supply policy.