The CAP is a worn-out sausage machine

How do you feel when you see a representative from the banking industry on the television defending their multi-million pound bonuses?

I’m guessing your emotions will be similar to mine, halfway between muttering “Oh come off it, mate” and wanting to throw a mug of hot tea at the screen.

So have a think about this one. The farming industry argues that the CAP exists to keep food prices low. But food prices are rising. How must taxpayers feel to see large sums of money rolling into farmers’ pockets while their own living standards are falling?

I find it impossible to defend the CAP any more. It’s not that I’m a total free trade nut; I can see the merit of a European agricultural strategy. Price volatility does a lot of damage to an industry’s development so I can even see the logic in an intervention mechanism to stabilise food prices.

The CAP was at its most effective when it worked that way. It was the pantry of Europe and we had physical evidence of where our money was going. We had mountains of butter and lakes of wine. No wonder cheese and wine parties were so popular in the 1970s.

How on earth did we move from the profitable farming and luxurious abundance of “old school” CAP to a scheme with all of the cost and none of the value? The system we have in place now does nothing to guarantee food production. It does nothing to stabilise food prices and, as it stands, it does precious little for biodiversity, carbon reduction or supporting rural communities either. It’s just a worn-out sausage machine churning out bureaucracy and giving dole to landowners.

The blanket nature of flat-rate area payments is one of the main drivers of agricultural cost inflation. The RPA might as well fly over the UK in Chinook helicopters shovelling £50 notes out the back – it would be a far less wasteful and time-consuming method of distributing money on a per acre basis.

Another reform of the policy is looming and, with member states’ budgets under pressure, one would assume that it’s time for new and radical thinking. No chance. “EU policy making is a giant, slow-moving vessel” they say. “It takes us a long while to change course.” Although I applaud the accuracy of the comparison with the Titanic, personally I favour the analogy of a giant toilet cistern that takes a long while to fill up between flushes. Brussels is a city where dreams are compromised. The predicted change this time, the capping of payments to large farms, is gloriously incoherent. This random act of populist socialism makes a mockery of their commitment to paying on an area basis. I question the fairness of it, but I don’t follow the argument that capping punishes businesses for being efficient. Not all large-scale farms are efficient. Efficiency is worthless if it isn’t sustainable and a lot of large arable farms are oil-dependent monsters – European policy should be encouraging the move away from mono-cultural enterprises that effectively do little more than convert fossil fuel into grain.

It’s time for the EU to start spending our money wisely and with a clearer sense of purpose. The CAP needs to support a much bolder, more sustainable vision for the future and should only reward those farmers that make it a reality.

Matthew Naylor farms 162ha (400 acres) of Lincolnshire silt in partnership with his father, Nev. Cropping includes potatoes, vegetables, cut flowers and flowering bulbs. Matthew is a Nuffield scholar.

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