EU ministers divided over climate target link to farm payments
EUROPEAN farmers are more downbeat than usual following last summer’s severe floods and drought.
According to statistics gathered by EU farmers’ federations Copa and Cogeca, farmers’ sentiment dropped in line with their income in the second half of 2018, after two years of recovery.
Copa Cogeca recorded a two-point decrease in farmers’ sentiment at the end of 2018, with the most severe drops among Swedish and Danish producers.
The weather also affected the availability and price of fodder, with the EU allowing farmers opt outs on some greening rules and early payments, but the support does not seem to have lifted their dark mood.
The survey (of 10 EU countries, not including Ireland) also found European farmers continue to fear Brexit, uncertainty on agricultural markets and potential changes on the future CAP budget.
Most UK farmers (84pc) say they have concerns about input costs going up, and livestock prices falling. EU agriculture ministers are divided over draft changes to future farm payments, particularly money linked to new climate targets.
They want some of the post2020 measures suggested by the EU to be postponed to give farmers more time to meet new environmental requirements.
Last June, the European Commission suggested a more “performance-based” Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) from 2021, which would require farmers to meet — and show they are meeting — nine social, economic and environmental targets in order to get EU money.
But agriculture ministers are worried about the extra red tape and potential sanctions they could face for failing to meet the targets, and have called for changes to the draft law.
They want more time to meet the targets, including a delay in the annual (February 15) deadline for submitting CAP performance reports.
They say reporting could be done every two years, or that the data required each February could be pared down to include only the basics.
Under the Commission’s draft law, countries that fail to meet the performance targets would have to submit a CAP “action plan” setting out the extra steps they intend to take to meet them, and could ultimately see their CAP payments suspended if they fail to do enough.
Farmers are worried they won’t have the necessary information for the reports, which go far beyond normal spending plans. “The deadline of February 15 for the submission of the annual performance report was considered as a difficulty by many delegations, due to the quantity of information to be provided not only on expenditure, but also on performance,” according to a note prepared for Monday’s meeting.
Michael Creed stressed to fellow Agriculture Ministers in the EU yesterday that securing an adequate budget is critical to the CAP. Under plans for the 2021-2027 budget, farmers would receive around €232bn in direct support, a drop of more than €30bn from the current seven-year budget.
Mr Creed warned fellow Ministers during their regular monthly meeting that there is one key issue.
“The CAP budget is the key,” he told the meeting. Some 80pc of the EU funds for Ireland come through the CAP.
EU governments are also calling for a permissible “deviation” from the nine targets, at least for the first two years the rules are in place.
They want a “tolerance margin” of at least 35pc (compared to the 25pc proposed by the Commission), which they say should be even higher in the first years of the new CAP, and are looking for an exemption from fines for smaller farmers.
And many disagree with a new crisis reserve fund, which the Commission wants to create from unspent CAP money. Many countries would