Minster for Agriculture Michael Creed has ruled out the idea of upward-only convergence (only rounding up payments and not rounding them down) in the next CAP saying he was “baffled” by the proposal.

IFA president Joe Healy raised the idea of upward-only convergence in his speech at the IFA AGM last week.

Draft EU proposals for the next CAP state that all entitlements must be at least 75% of the national average by 2026

Speaking in the Dáil on Wednesday 6 February Minister Creed said the next CAP would continue to see a journey of greater convergence which required the reduction of some farmers’ payments.

Minister Creed said under the current policy, over €100m had moved from farmers with high CAP payments per hectare to those with lower payments. Draft EU proposals for the next CAP state that all entitlements must be at least 75% of the national average by 2026.

Provisions

However, he emphasised that provisions would be needed to ensure there were no unintended consequences as a result of convergence.

He used the example of a farmer who was on a low payment of €12,000 but saw this payment reduced through convergence as there was a high payment per hectare. Minister Creed said these situations must be prevented.

Reference years

A number of deputies criticised the use of reference years from the early 2000s and asked the minister whether they would still be used in the next CAP.

Minister Creed defended the use of reference years saying that entitlements today bear little resemblance to those from 2001 as a result of convergence and other redistribution measures.

When asked for details of Ireland’s CAP strategic plan which is due to be submitted to the European Commission by 1 January 2020, the minister said a number of steps were needed before schemes in the plan could be designed.

The Department is in the process of tendering out the consultancy contract to an outside firm

A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis of Irish agriculture will first be required. When this is completed, a needs assessment must be undertaken to determine what Irish agriculture requires.

An external consultancy firm will then be required to evaluate both documents.

The Department is in the process of tendering out the consultancy contract to an outside firm.

Minister Creed said that he envisaged there being successors to existing GLAS and BDGP schemes in the next CAP.

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