Officials in DG Agri in Brussels are toying with the idea of compulsory capping of direct payments and focusing monies towards those who depend on farming for a living, AgraFacts reports.

With more pressure on the EU’s Budget with the UK exiting the EU and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) taking up in the region of 39% of the funds, the idea of compulsory capping could be on the cards, it says.

Such a cap on payments could see each CAP beneficiary be capped at between €60,000 and €100,000. Currently the cap is €150,000 per beneficiary.

The capping of payments is understood to be one aspect of the Commission’s Communication on Simplification and Modernisation of the CAP.

The Irish Farmers Journal understands that work on a draft on the communication is ongoing to be discussed at an inter-service consultation in the coming weeks – the procedure which is to be used for requesting the formal opinion of other Commission Directorate Generals on the contents of a proposal.

AgraFacts reports that the in the Communication on Simplification and Modernisation of the CAP, that DG Agri proposes “enhanced support to smaller farms, notably through a redistributive payment” and a “focus on those who depend on farming for their living”.

This could see direct payments to part-time farmers cut and redistributed to farmers who only have their farm as a source of income.

It was suggested earlier this year that direct payments could be targeted more effectively to ensure income to all farmers across the EU, particularly for marginal areas and the poorest farms, in an EU Reflection Paper on the Future of EU Finances.

That paper also said: “Such an option could reduce direct payments for large farms.

“One option to explore is the introduction of a degree of national co-financing for direct payments in order to sustain the overall levels of current support.”

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