Wasted opportunity of disappointing CAP reforms
Posted, October 12, 2011 @ 13:00
Conservative MEPs have condemned much-heralded proposals for reforming the European Union's controversial Common Agriculture Policy as one massive wasted opportunity.
The proposals, were being presented today (Weds) by Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos as a wholesale overhaul and modernisation of CAP.
But Richard Ashworth, Conservative Agriculture spokesman in the European Parliament, dismissed them as backward step which failed to address the policy's worst faults.
He said: "This doesn't take the CAP forward or do anything to tackle the real issues - about how we address food security concerns and grow more food using fewer resources."
He said the last two reviews of CAP had taken a very clear direction towards creating a viable and globally-competitive food industry. But there was no sense in Mr Ciolos's proposals that this direction would be continued.
Proposals to cap payments for large farms and to reclassificy less favoured areas (LFAs) were unwelcome, he said, and would not reduce bureaucracy or help farmers feed a growing population
"It seems no thought has been given to making farmers successful instead of subsidising their failure," he said.
"We should be working to create a stand-alone industry that can be weaned off subsidies. We should be freeing farmers from red tape so that they can react quickly to market forces. Instead of tying them up in green tape and making it harder for them to produce food, we need to let farmers get on with farming.
"The measures intended to promote the enviroment are just bureaucratic. They will further complicate the CAP but fail to help the environment."
Insisting there should be no return to the practice of set aside, which gives grant to farmers who leave fields unplanted to grow wild, he said: "At a time of high food prices it is madness to force farmers to leave part of their land uncultivated just in order to get a payment.
"These uninspiring proposals are a bitter disappointment, considering the golden opportunity that the Commission had to reshape CAP and let our farmers benefit from the global market. It is a massive waste of that opportunity."