EU’S green plans could halt crops, says NFU

EUROPE’S CONTROVERSIAL plans to green the Common Agricultural Policy would have a dramatic impact on farming in the Highlands and could force some farmers to stop production, a new study has concluded.

The report – commissioned by NFU Scotland and the Cairngorm National Park Authority – is a follow-up to a previous examination of the proposals and how they would affect three farms at Forres, Grantown and Laggan.

The latest study involves 35 farms in and around the national park.

Nearly 10% of the farmers surveyed said the greening measures touted by Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos could force them out of business.

Three-quarters warned greening would have an adverse environmental impact, while 50% felt they could also have a negative impact on flora and fauna.

The majority of the 35 grow arable crops for animal feed.

However, a quarter said greening could force them to stop cropping to avoid the three-crop rule.

Mr Ciolos has introduced some flexibility into his greening plans since he revealed them last October.

However, they will still force every farmer in Europe to put 7% of their productive land into ecological focus areas – a diktat seen by many farm ministers and farming unions across the EU as a return to set-aside.

He also wants farmers to grow at least three crops, although farms with less than 123 acres and predominantly in grass will now be excluded from this.

Mr Ciolos has bowed to pressure on the designation of permanent grassland, shifting the tipping point from five to eight years in grass.

However, that is still not long enough for many Scottish farms, which maintain grassland as part of a 14 to 20-year rotation.

The results of the study have been presented to the union, park authority and Scottish Government officials.

The union will use the findings to continue its lobbying efforts to force further changes to the proposals.

President Nigel Miller said Scottish farmers had been concerned since the Cap reforms were released that the greening proposals were too prescriptive as well as detrimental to the farmed environment and their businesses.

He added: “This study, while over a relatively small geographical area, encompassed a representative sample of Scottish less-favoured area farms.

“It proves how the three-crop rule would limit farming options, lead to compliance problems and fail to deliver the environmental gain it is designed to provide.

“Given the study has been completed in an area already rich in environmental attributes brought about by current farming practices, it highlights clearly the counterproductive nature of the greening proposals on many Scottish.”

There remains huge opposition across Europe to the greening measures, with several northern states, including Sweden, strenuously objecting to them.

Mr Miller said the report highlighted the need for any green plan to have as extensive a list as possible of options available for farmers on biodiversity, climate change, efficiency and animal health measures.

Robert Macdonald, of Castle Grant Farms, Grantown, was involved in the initial study and said when it was published that the simplest solution would be for farmers to cut livestock numbers as farming in the hills and uplands would be made more difficult by Cap greening.

Nigel Miller