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Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed opened the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) consultation meeting on Monday night by emphasising the important role sustainability will play in the CAP 2020 budget.
“I want to make sure that the environment doesn’t become a handbrake that stops the drive of the industry,” Creed said.
The term sustainability was clearly viewed with mixed feelings by a large proportion of the 300 people who were in attendance at the consultation in Charleville, Co Cork. Many took to the floor to express the need for environmental schemes to include adequate or increased remuneration.
Views from the floor all calling on Minister @creedcnw to make sure the #CAP2020 budget increases. pic.twitter.com/YQnGlQoNud
— Farmers Journal (@farmersjournal) February 12, 2018
David Buckley from the Department of Agriculture outlined in his presentation that the EU was keen to grant member states more autonomy in creating their own schemes in the next CAP. Schemes in Ireland were likely to be smaller locally-led initiatives, similar to the hen harrier and Burren LIFE projects.
Forgotten farmers
A stir went through the crowd when one presentation showed that only 6% of farmers in the EU were under 35, and a number of young farmers took to the floor to call on the Minister to end the five-year rule that limits Young Farmer Scheme payments and creates a pool of forgotten farmers.
'My accountant told me that I’d be better off if I sold my land and rented it out to my dairy farmers,' Jim Predergast, asks the panel to introduce a suckler cow payment in #CAP2020 @creedcnw @agriculture_ie @teagasc ??
— Farmers Journal (@farmersjournal) February 12, 2018
Suckler farmers dominated proceedings after the panel presentations and called on the Minister to ensure that their incomes would be guaranteed in the next CAP, by ensuring that the CAP budget was increased.
However, that may prove difficult in the face of Brexit, with a projected €4bn loss to the CAP budget, and an EU budget commissioner who has already stated that he is looking to make a 5% to 10% cut in the agriculture budget.
'Pipe dreams'
“We can have all of the lofty ambitions for the Common Agricultural Policy, but if we don’t have the budget, they’re but pipe dreams really,” Minister Creed said.
“Not a single country is volunteering to take less and not a single country is volunteering to put in more.
“I think it would be unwise tactically to be running around now saying we’ll pay more when our contribution would be going to another country rather than to ourselves.
“We need to box clever on this, but I do subscribe to the view that we need to make sure that the Common Agricultural Policy is adequately funded,” Minister Creed concluded.
Listen: CAP 2020 - farm incomes, young farmers and the environment
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