With the European Council reaching an agreement on CAP, all elements of the EU institutions now have a position. The agreement that 20% of Pillar I payments be ring-fenced for environmental schemes means the CAP continues its move away from productive agriculture to management of the rural environment.

It was late on Tuesday when the president of the European Agriculture and Fisheries Council, German minister Julia Klöckner, announced that the agriculture ministers from the EU 27 had reached an agreement. The result is that the CAP proposals launched by then Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan in June 2018 are within sight of being approved as the support structure for Irish farmers for the next seven years.

The most challenging part of this negotiation will be around the level of commitment in Pillar I to environmental schemes

This agreement at national political level now goes into the churn in the EU, referred to as trilogues. This is where the three institutions – Commission, the Parliament and the Council – negotiate a compromise between what each had separately wanted. The most challenging part of this negotiation will be around the level of commitment in Pillar I to environmental schemes. The Council of Ministers agreed that 20% of Pillar I, the part of the budget that is used for BPS payments, be ring-fenced for environmental schemes; the Commission and the Parliament have both proposed 30%.

Farm to Fork

The path to political agreement among ministers had been cleared by the approval of the Farm to Fork strategy ahead of the intense CAP negotiation. This was launched by the commissioner responsible for health and food safety, Stella Kyriakides, in May and is basically the roadmap that points the direction of travel for EU farming and the contribution of the sector to the EU Green deal. This is the theme of the current Commission. It has the ambition of making the EU the world’s first carbon-neutral continent by 2050.

The agriculture ministers approved the strategy ahead of negotiations on the CAP with the condition added that there would be an impact assessment carried out

The role of livestock production is particularly challenged in this document and it has a recurring theme of discouraging output from the sector. The agriculture ministers approved the strategy ahead of negotiations on the CAP with the condition added that there would be an impact assessment carried out, with some member states of the view this should have been carried out in advance of the decision rather than a postscript.

National plans

We can now expect an intense negotiation between the EU institutions before the German presidency concludes at the end of December. That means the focus for Irish farmers now switches to forming a national plan. This new initiative goes back to the original Commission proposal and is presented as the opportunity for individual EU states to deliver the CAP to their farmers in a way that suits local conditions best.

The challenge will be to frame a delivery plan that enables farmers access the ring-fenced portion of the Pillar I payments with the minimum of hassle

Of course, it is also a way for the EU to avoid taking the blame for the implementation of rules by national governments. In any case, it presents an opportunity to shape the delivery of the CAP in Dublin, though this will have to get approval by the EU so that the “common” element of the Common Agriculture Policy is maintained. The challenge will be to frame a delivery plan that enables farmers access the ring-fenced portion of the Pillar I payments with the minimum of hassle. The minister has already expressed his fears that there is a risk of farmers not pursuing this element of the funding and it being lost to Ireland.

Making CAP fit Irish farming

The detail remains to be thrashed out on what tolerance there will be beyond an initial period to allow transfer to other rural development schemes. However, the challenge remains to develop environmental schemes that best fit the pattern of Irish farming.

The Farm to Fork strategy has a strong focus on reduction of pesticides and fertilisers plus an ambition to have 25% of EU agricultural land in organic production by 2030. This seems particularly ambitious for Irish farming given that we are primarily an exporting country with a small domestic market.

Where there may be more potential is in exploring if less intensification can be achieved through well-funded retirement schemes or even developing a quasi-organic scheme that reflects the minimal use of pesticides and fertiliser in many of Ireland’s already very extensive farming regions.