By Martin Banks - 12th May 2010
Direct payments to farmers under the CAP must continue
Gerd Sonnleitner
A parliamentary hearing on the EU's agriculture policy heard that "direct payments" to farmers "must continue" after 2013.
Addressing the hearing on Wednesday, Gerd Sonnleitner said this was all the more important at a time of market volatility and growing world food demand.
The hearing, organised by parliament's ALDE group, comes amid ongoing public consultation on the future of the common agriculture policy (CAP) after the next EU spending period in 2013.
The CAP, a system of EU subsidies and programmes, represents some 48 per cent of the EU budget whose aim is to provide farmers with a reasonable standard of living, consumers with quality food at fair prices, and to preserve rural heritage.
There has been considerable criticism of CAP and reforms of the system are currently underway reducing import controls and, possibly, the overall size of the budget.
Sonnleitner, deputy president of European agri-cooperatives (Cogeca), told the seminar that farmers still play a "vital" economic role" in producing food for 500 million consumers.
He said, "Direct payments to farmers under the CAP must continue after 2013 if farmers are to continue to provide the huge public benefits of safeguarding the countryside and providing food security.
"Payments should be directed at active farmers and the future CAP must ensure that markets function better.
"We also need to reinforce farmers' position in the food chain. One way of doing this would be by concentrating supply via the development of producer organisations, especially cooperatives."
In a paper submitted to the hearing the Eurogroup for Animals said, "We believe the CAP must be fundamentally changed if it is to deliver what citizens want.
"Farmers should make a decent living but we believe the policy must improve farm animal welfare much more drastically than it currently does. It must prevent further industrialisation of livestock production.
"This can only be achieved through drastic changes to the current CAP leading to the creation of a strong agricultural policy."
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