The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Climate change and water are key CAP reform issues
EU farm ministers have identified water resources and climate change adaption as key CAP reform issues.
These will now be high on the agenda for a post-2020 CAP likely to be greener than the present policy.
This was agreed at an informal meeting of farm ministers, hosted by the EU’s Maltese presidency.
The farm commissioner, Phil Hogan, backed technical solutions to tackle some of these problems, describing research and innovation as the keys to smart and resilient farming.
A new concept is the pursuit of ‘agro-ecological’ principles, reflecting a public consultation that pressed for a CAP more focussed on the environment than farm incomes.
Meanwhile across the Atlantic the Trump administration has announced plans for a big cut in the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) budget. This could see farm programmes cut back and restricted by farm size, along with big administrative cuts.
The European Commission is looking at radical options to dispose of or reduce the stock of skimmed milk powder it has in store.
This tops 350,000 tonnes and was bought in to support the market during the 2016 dairy crisis.
The commission has rejected low tender offers, on grounds that selling stocks cheaply would undermine a steady global recovery of dairy markets.
It is now looking at the option of humanitarian aid programmes. The current value of SMP is around 1,800 euros per tonne, but all tender offers have been well short of that.
The commission’s main goal is to dispose of its stocks in a way that does not damage the market, and it is less concerned about recouping funds committed to the support programme last year.
The organisation that represents European beef processors, Clitravi, has challenged the European Commission to explain why vegetarian products can use ‘meat’ terms without breaking regulations to prevent consumer confusion.
The lobby group has cited as examples vegetarian meat, salami, sausages and even chicken branded as chiken.
It says it has no concerns about the use of generic terms like mince, but believes other terms could confuse consumers. This seems unlikely, but in a hearts and minds battle against well funded anti-meat causes Clitravi does not want to be seen to be soft.
Last week the Ulster Farmers Union criticised vegan campaigns that denigrated dairy farmers, and questioned how soy or almond drinks could be described as milk.
The end of the BSE era moved a step closer this week, with the European Commission agreeing to end some restrictions on the export of processed animal proteins from cattle and sheep.
These are for the feed industry, but meat and bonemeal is still excluded.
This should help reduce the amount of specified risk material that has to go for destruction.
This overturns a regulation banning these products from 2001, and the commission says its decision is proportionate to the risk.
There were just five cases of BSE across the EU in 2015.
A total of 23 member states now have BSE negligible risk status (BSE NR), the latest being Northern Ireland which secured it last week, potentially opening up markets closed to it for a considerable time.