The Department of Agriculture is making good progress on amending areas of the draft CAP strategic plan that require changes for the plan to receive the European Commission’s approval, the Irish Farmers Journal understands.

The finalising of remaining elements of the strategic plan is ongoing and the Commission is understood to be satisfied with the reaction of Ireland to its observations on the Department’s proposals.

The plan is understood to be on track to receive the green light just after the summer, allowing farmers to know key details of the new set of schemes by the National Ploughing Championships deadline previously suggested by Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue.

The ongoing discussions are on very technical aspects of the proposed schemes, as well as the methods that will be used to assess the country’s progress towards environmental targets.

The approval of the plan with any necessary changes to the draft will come after more than 10 meetings between Department of Agriculture officials and officials from the European Commission, where these technical details were discussed.

Policies outside the plan

It is also understood that comments made by the Commission in its observation letter on the plan regarding the absence of any significant level of detail on the long-term sustainability of the dairy sector will not hamper the plan’s approval.

Central to approval will be the consistency of these non-CAP policies, such as any Government-adopted recommendations of the Food Vision dairy group’s final report, with overarching EU environmental and agri-food policy objectives.

Sources suggest that not every single detail of the Government’s dairy policy will need to be finalised for the Commission to approve the plan, as such provisions could delay finalisation beyond 2022, leaving a gap in schemes.

Organics

Over its discussions with member states, Brussels has acknowledged that not every EU-wide target outlined in the Farm to Fork strategy and the European Green Deal has to be met by every member state.

One area where this is understood to have been acknowledged in Ireland’s negotiations was in the area of organic farming, as the Government’s planned targets fall behind the EU target to have 25% of all farmland under certified organic production.

Officials within the Commission have suggested that the point of departure on organics was taken into account when considering the ambition of Ireland’s organic target of 7.5% of the organic area by 2027.