Tenants want one big payment
16 February 2001
Tenants want one big payment
By Tamarind Davidson
SUBSIDIES paid under the Common Agricultural Policy should be replaced by a single annual payment or bond, claims the Tenant Farmers Association.
The suggestion was made by TFA chairman Reg Haydon at the associations annual conference in London on Thursday (15 February).
“It is evident that the CAP is not working. Some 3 billion has been put into agriculture over the past year, and the industry is still in crisis,” he said.
“The bond payment system is a radical yet revolutionary idea whereby producers would receive a single annual payment, based on subsidies received over a certain period.”
The system would reduce expensive administration and would de-couple all production decisions from support payments, added Mr Haydon.
“With the future of government policy going down the environmental line, this is an interim measure,” he told delegates.
“Environmental and other objectives can be built into the bond, and some sort of modulation to prevent very big farms from receiving huge payments.”
The EU has commissioned research into the idea, which Mr Haydon believes would benefit the aspirations of the EU in terms of expansion and world trade.