EC handed CAP reform demands

Reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy should ensure farm subsidies are given to working farmers, the European Commission has been told.

Setting out seven principles which must underpin proposals for CAP reform (see box), the Tennant Farmers Association said that too often landlords took payments without passing on the benefits to their tenants.

In a letter to EU agriculture Commission Dacian Ciolos ahead of the tabling of formal proposals for CAP reform, the TFA also said direct payments through pillar one should continue.

Greg Bliss, TFA chairman, said without those payments forming the basis of CAP, farmers would not get a fair standard of living because the market could not deliver.

“This support also recognises the increased costs associated with the higher environmental and animal welfare standards demanded of domestic producers,” he added.

“We also need the ability to protect ourselves against imports of food produced to lower standards.”

Mr Bliss said UK farmers needed a system which provided equal trading terms across the EU.

“It is simply not fair that other Member States of the European Union are allowed to continue providing production related support in certain sectors and charging a lower modulation rate in comparison to that faced by UK farmers,” he said.

“These measures are anti-competitive and must not be allowed to continue.”

Moving away from coupled support had led to a major increase in the volatility of returns to producers, as well as volatility in input costs, he added.

“This is something which we are looking for the EU to address in any future reform programme.”

TFA’s “golden principles” for CAP reform:

• Direct payments through pillar one must continue to form the principal basis of support through the CAP.

• Measures must be put in place to ensure that support payments do not become capitalised into land values.

• Rates of modulation should be uniform across the European Union.

• Domestic producers should be protected from imports from third countries and other EU Member States using lower environmental and animal welfare standards.

• All Member States should be required to have the same level of decoupling.

• Market management instruments should be introduced to assist the industry in managing volatility.

• Measures should be put in place to protect the access of tenant farmers into Pillar 2, agri-environment schemes.