Farmers guaranteed minimum income under plans from Europe

The European Commission is considering plans for a publicly-funded insurance scheme for farmers’ incomes.

European Agriculture Commissioner Dacion Ciolos said legislation was needed to ensure a minimum income for farmers after the European Union gave up the majority of its market support mechanisms.

Part of the plans to reform the Common Agricultural Policy post-2013, proposals for the scheme could be ready for discussion by the Commission later in the year, he said.

It is hoped the move would bolster European farm incomes, which have deteriorated over the past decade thanks to poor market conditions and rising input costs.

According to EU farmers’ group Copa-Cogeca, average incomes in agriculture were about 50% less than those in other sectors, with two-thirds of farmers’ earnings coming from direct payments under the CAP.

UKIP East of England MEP Stuart Agnew said the plans were a “massive bureaucratic challenge” that the EU would ultimately fail to deliver on.

“It is sure to create yet another army of administrators with the associated corruption and waste that we regularly see in EU schemes,” he said.

“The British taxpayer will get poor value out of an EU income insurance scheme and, because of our status as net contributors, half of our contributions toward the proposed food promotion agency would be spent on promoting the produce of other EU countries.”

Speaking in Brussels on Monday (21 July), Mr Ciolos also revealed to create an agency to promote produce from the European agri-food industry.

He said he was “reflecting seriously” on the need for a specific agency with its own budget to promote European food around the world.

“I think it’s important to be more positively aggressive in the world market with our products,” he said.

It was even more important given the increased openness of EU agriculture to global commodity markets, he added.