Influencers. They seem to be everywhere nowadays, on social media and TV. They even turn up at the National Ploughing Championships.

There’ll be queues at the TikTok stand to meet people who have become famous for giving their opinion on games, clothing, cars, you name it.

It seems the European Commission wants farmers to all become influencers in the next CAP. It proposes to focus funding on farmers who are willing to influence the public into switching to a more plant-based diet, by producing more plant-based food. They will also reward production that is less intensive. In fact, they’d prefer if it’s organic.

What’s the harm in that, you might ask? Sure isn’t the science all saying that we need to reduce the carbon footprint of food, and anyway farmers aren’t exactly becoming millionaires producing meat and milk.

That is true. The problem, the fly in the margarine spread, is that this is the reverse of how food production and food consumption have evolved over centuries, ever since we moved from a largely agrarian, subsistence society towards one that is largely urban and industrial.

Key factors

The system is that consumers buy what they see as value for money, and farmers meet consumer demand through production.

The key influencers are retailers and processors, who are responsible for the majority of food advertising. The key factors are price and availability. Organic food is freely available, but public uptake has remained stubbornly low.

While demand for organic food is growing, em, organically, progress is steady and slow. And while there is usually a price bonus for organic produce, it isn’t of the order that will transform farm incomes.

Farmers will still be largely reliant on supports to be viable. This is particularly true of the plant-based tillage, fruit and vegetable sectors.

Scaling up and higher output have long been the solutions, but scale without margin is simply a case of farmers running to stand still, and de-intensification is now the goal.

The IFA returned from last week’s CAP conference with serious concerns on how to navigate the next CAP reform. The typical Irish farm produces meat or milk, mostly from fresh or saved grass. This is a form of production the Commission seems to be pivoting away from.

While the stated aim to support the most economically vulnerable farmers is noble, one-third of the EU’s nine million farmers generated less than €2,000 worth of output. Collectively, they account for only 1% of the EU’s food output.

Will CAP funds be siphoned away from viable Irish family farms to prop up land management/abandonment and non-production?

It’s a genuine worry if they are.