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Farmers View 17th June 2008

Look Out, There’s a CAP Health Check About!

When it was agreed, prior to the 2005 reform of the Common Agriculture Policy, that a review would take place in 2008, it was possible to take comfort from the fact that this was three years away. This comfort zone has quickly evaporated and the so-called ‘Health Check’ is now with us. With recommendations published in May, we have the summer to consider them and make our views known.

Much more ominously however, it is under a French Presidency of the EU, later in the year, that the proposals will subsequently be agreed. Now, I don’t want to be accused of being anti-French; far from it, I believe that French governments over the years must be commended for the way in which they have stood up for the interests of their farmers to the exclusion of all others. Problem is that many other governments, especially ours in recent years, have been only too willing to let them have their way, at our expense!

Some of the proposals are obviously acceptable like the abolition of set-aside for example. With the world now very short of food and the bio-fuel industry already struggling with higher than expected commodity prices, no acre, or should that be hectare, can be left un-farmed. The ending of milk quota by 2015 will also be sustainable if we can finally get the ‘Level playing field’ trade conditions which we have been pursuing over the last 25 years or so.

More controversial may be the increasing of compulsory modulation. In debate in the Scottish Parliament, the Conservatives have made it clear that we could only agree to this if it is accompanied by a corresponding reduction in voluntary modulation, keeping the figure at its current overall level. The idea of so-called ‘Progressive modulation’ is much less appealing. While this might take less from smaller farmers and more from the larger ones, if applied on a pan-European basis, it could see large sums of money moving away from Scotland and towards Greece for example.

Proposals for specific re-coupling should be resisted at all costs. Market led recovery in livestock prices are too valuable to put at risk. Subsidising the growth in the breeding herd/flock will just lead to oversupply and a reversal in the healthier prices we have seen this past year. I am aware that there has been a problem with maintaining numbers on the hills but his is best tackled through the existing LFA scheme whish has a built in scale to address the degree of disadvantage.

One possible change, which we must be ready to resist, is a premature move away from the historical basis for the single farm payment. We all know that, ultimately, the historical basis for the single farm payment will become untenable and it is right that we should review it. However, the correct time for making this change must be when the existing system becomes unstable due to its increasingly historical nature. I would suggest that this time is still some way off. Secondly, if a change is to take place, it must be flagged up at least 5 years in advance so that the market in entitlements can be normalised and ideally, it should be passed in over a number of years.

With the show season now upon us and many a politician out taking the sun, don’t be afraid to let your elected representatives know your opinions, that’s what they’re there for.