Speaking at the Macra na Feirme annual conference in Cork on Saturday, Hogan said the definition was coined under the last Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform in 2012. He said at the time legislators in the Commission could not agree on what constituted an active farmer so they focused instead on what it is not.

"They came up with a negative list because they could not agree on what an active farmer was," he said to those present. "This has caused an enormous amount of difficulties for young farmers. It's ludicrous to have created a negative definition just because legislators could not agree on how we could be productive and progressive in the definition of an active farmer."

He said he is willing to review this definition in the future but this would require a change in the basic act. "It won't happen until earliest 2017 or 2018," he said, "but I fully understand your frustrations on this matter."

The Commissioner was responding to a question from a young farmer at the rally who put it to Hogan that the CAP has "turned from supporting food production to being a reward for land ownership - land is lying idle and people are getting rewarded for sitting on it."

"Bureaucratic nightmare"

Hogan also agreed with the sentiments expressed by some of the young farmers that greening measures, on top of cross-compliance, have been a "bureaucratic nightmare" for them. The Commissioner said these will be reviewed under the simplification of the CAP and the ecological focus review in 2016. The Commissioner admitted that the measures have been so difficult for farmers that they have "set back" a lot of the ecological objectives the Commission wanted them to achieve.

"They have created a lot of unecessary frustrations," Hogan said. "We will have environmental obligations, undoubtedly, but we should look at it in a practical way."

Markets

He also reiterated that he will be leading trade missions to other countries around the world next year in order to help open more markets to EU dairy and pigmeat.

Hogan willing to review definition of an 'active farmer'

EU Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan has said the definition of the "active farmer" as coined by the EU Commission in 2012 has been a major source of difficulty for young farmers.