Safety report likely to see glyphosate licensed

EU farm commissioner Phil Hogan has hinted that glyphosate’s product licence will be renewed in Europe for at least 10 years. The decision is expected within weeks and follows the product being declared safe by the European Chemicals Agency which said the herbicide could not be viewed as a carcinogen. The European Commission has published the final figures for the 2016 milk supply reduction programme. In the final quarter of the year this saw 861,000 tonnes taken out of production by around 48,000 farmers – an average of 18 tonnes per farmer.

The biggest use of the scheme, not surprisingly, was in the major milk producing member states – Germany, France, Netherlands and the UK.

The scheme did not use its full budget and, despite viewing it a success, the commission has had to acknowledge that the uptake was lower than expected. It claims the scheme led to a 30% boost in milk prices by the end of 2016.

However, in reality, that came from farmers cutting production long before this scheme came in, because of margin pressure. Mr Hogan has warned that the CAP will be under financial pressure after 2020. He said agriculture would have to fight hard for its share of the EU budget, citing as reasons Brexit and the loss of the UK’s net contribution along with growing demands on the EU budget. These include the cost of security and migration.

He said the future CAP could no longer be about delivering funds to farmers. Instead he said it had to be sold to the majority of taxpayers across Europe, by focusing on issues such as the environment, sustainability and food quality. These comments coincide with a public consultation on what people expect from the CAP.