By Martin Banks - 21st February 2012
A leading farmers' organisation says that "common sense must be injected" into commission plans to "green" the single farm payment.
The message from the National Farmers Union (NFU) in the UK comes in the wake of EU plans to reform its controversial common agricultural policy - its most expensive scheme, and one of the most controversial.
The common agricultural policy (CAP( cost €58bn in 2010 or 47 per cent of the whole EU budget.
The commission does not want to cut the budget but change its priorities - including linking direct payments to environmental measures.
Its proposals, announced last autumn, include making 30 per cent of the "direct payment" income support payments received by farmers dependent on environmental criteria.
Other proposed measures include keeping EU farm spending level until 2020, though it may be reduced by inflation and capping the total subsidy a large farm can receive at €300,000.
But farming, environmental and taxpayer groups all have their own concerns about the plans.
They include the NFU whose deputy president Meurig Raymond put forward his organisation's concerns at a meeting with the MEPs in charge of amending the commission's CAP proposals.
The meeting included parliament's agriculture committee chairman Paolo De Castro, an Italian deputy, and the lead rapporteur on CAP, Portuguese MEP Luis Manuel Capoulas Santos.
After the meeting, Raymond said, "The policy must recognise the greening efforts already underway on British farms."
He also warned against greening measures, "which would hamper production and harm farm competitiveness".
"Because MEPs are in charge of amending commission proposals they have a wonderful opportunity to simplify the policy, to make it more market orientated and to help farmers become more competitive," said Raymond.
"The commission's impact assessment indicated greening will result in a 4.8 per cent cut in farm incomes and could push food prices higher through supply-side pressures. This is unacceptable, but the problems don't stop there.
"We fear greening could also undermine the commission's environmental goals by discouraging farmers from entering into environmental schemes in 'Pillar 2.' Currently 68 per cent of English farmland is managed in optional agri-environment schemes.
"We are encouraging MEPs to recognise the efforts that many farmers are already making in delivering environmental benefits through the CAP.
"If Pillar 1 greening measures cannot be deleted from the text, we have told MEPs they must be common at a European level, maintain our productive capacity and minimise cost and bureaucracy."
He added, "The NFU now believes this is a crucial time to lobby MEPs.
"Over the next six months MEPs will write amendments to improve key areas of the regulation such as on greening. This is our chance to inject some common sense into CAP reform."
