More reforms likely – former minister

FURTHER REFORM of the Common Agricultural Policy is inevitable, to deliver better value for money to consumers and taxpayers and to create a fairer share-out of support payments to small family farms, according to former UK farm minister Nick Brown.

Writing in a new book on the CAP*, Mr Brown insisted that “despite three reform rounds, the CAP remains economically and politically unsustainable”.

He claimed that consumers would still be paying more than they ought to for their food, while large farmers would continue to take the lion‘s share of support payments.

Export subsidies would continue to harm developing countries, while farm support based on historic receipts would reinforce an inefficient distribution of resources.

While acknowledging that the latest CAP reforms have started to address some of these issues, Mr Brown insisted there was more to be done to help EU farming compete, while meeting the additional costs of environmental protection and avoiding land abandonment in remote areas.

Report author, the former Italian agriculture minister Paolo de Castro, said there was a need to avoid renationalising the CAP.

And it was essential that any further reform should reduce bureaucracy and protect Europe‘s unique and distinctive foods from cheaper imitations.

At the book launch in London, NFU president Tim Bennett agreed that there would be further reforms, possibly as soon as 2008.

* Towards A New European Agriculture – What Agricultural Policy In The
Enlarged EU? Published by Agra Editrice, Rome, 00 39 0644254205.