Vision for Agriculture and Food ‘must be backed’

This vision is published at a time when there are a lot of concerning noises around the budget for the next CAP.

Contributor

26 February 2025

Vision for Agriculture and Food ‘must be backed’

(L-r): IFA director of European affairs Liam MacHale, Max Sealy, NFU dairy board member, Paul Tompkins, NFU dairy board chair, and Verity Richards, chief dairy adviser NFU, at last week’s event in Brussels to discuss the Introduction of Dairy Contracts in the UK.

IFA deputy president Alice Doyle said her initial reaction to the Vision for Agriculture document was broadly positive, but ultimately it will be judged on how many of the objectives are achieved in the term of this Commission. “The Vision document is the first step here. Now farmers need to see action, with a proper CAP budget and a separate fund for environmental measures on farms. We need to see change and delivery on the objectives,” she said.

“The Vision document is the first step here. Now farmers need to see action, with a proper CAP budget and a separate fund for environmental measures on farms. We need to see change and delivery on the objectives,” she said.

“The reality is that this Vision is published at time when there are a lot of concerning noises around the budget for the next CAP. Nice words are fine, but they must be backed up with a strong EU budget for the CAP and separate funding to support environmental measures on farms,” she said.

The Vision document also sets out that the Commission “will orient the future CAP away from conditions to incentives”. If delivered upon, this would be a welcome pivot in direction relative to the focus of the last CAP reform.

“The CAP accounts for a substantial part of farm income across the EU and this public support is vital to maintain EU food production and to attract the next generation of farmers who need to see this Vision being implemented.

“The Commission must ensure that this is a common vision across all policy areas impacting agriculture and not to repeat the mistakes of the past, where the Commission lacked a coherent approach to our sector,” Alice Doyle said.

“References in the document about targeting supports to the farmers who ‘need it most‘ need to be teased out, as it may not be consistent with the original intention of the CAP, which was to support food production,” she added.

The IFA deputy president queried how nature credits, carbon removals and carbon farming will be increased, and the viability of complementary sources of income for farmers from climate neutral and nature positive economy, which is included in the document.

“We would have a concern about the proposed ‘voluntary benchmarking system for on-farm sustainability assessments’, and how that could be fairly implemented given how varied farm systems are across the EU.”

In relation to food security, the deputy president welcomed the recognition of its importance to the EU.

“The importance of food security in the context of EU’s overall security is strongly supported in the document. This highlights the importance of rebalancing CAP policy back toward food production in any future reforms.

“The document also highlights the importance of a stronger alignment of production standards to imported products into the EU.

“The Commission cannot proceed with the proposed Mercosur trade agreement, given the clear divergence in production standards between EU and South American countries.

“Farmers cannot afford to wait until 2040 to implement many of the ambitions included in today’s announcement and we believe Commissioner Hansen understood this urgency when he addressed our AGM last month,” she concluded.