Common Agricultural Policy needs emergency surgery, not a Health Check
Posted, May 20, 2008 @ 00:00
Strasbourg, 20th May 2008 --- "Nowhere near strong enough" was the reaction of Neil Parish, Conservative MEP and Chairman of the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee, as the European Commission finally unveiled its long awaited "Health Check" of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The Health Check is the first overhaul of the CAP since the introduction of the Single Farm Payment scheme in 2003/4 and assumes even more importance following the spiralling of food prices around the world. It seeks to update and simplify the scheme, adapting the CAP to new challenges like food security and making it more relevant to the modern world by moving more money away from direct subsidies and into areas such as environmental stewardship.
Mr Parish welcomed the abolition of set-aside, the rule by which a proportion of land must be left uncultivated, the further reduction in decoupling, and the planned abolition of milk quotas. However, in the current climate Mr Parish had hoped that the European Commissioner would use the Health Check as an opportunity to free up European Agriculture and to allow British farmers to produce more food. In particular, he hoped to see firmer proposals on the simplification of cross compliance regulations and a greater amount of money moved from direct payments into environmental schemes through compulsory 'modulation'.
Mr Parish said:
"The Commission has identified the root cause of the disease but its prescription is nowhere near strong enough. The symptoms of attempts to manage the agriculture market are visible throughout the world and unless a more radical approach to CAP reform is adopted, European agriculture will become less and less healthy.
"We need to move more money moved from direct payments into environmental schemes and there is a strong case for moving support from cereal production into sectors that really need support to survive, such as the livestock sector which often farms in areas of high landscape value. The abolition of set aside will allow us to produce more cereals and we can retain its environmental benefits, such as enhanced hedgerows, through six metre protection zones.
"The market price now provides a huge incentive for farmers but European red tape is getting in their way. Far from protecting farmers, overzealous regulations are limiting their capacity to meet the challenge of producing more food. We have a responsibility to farmers in the EU and consumers across the globe to stop government interference and allow them to do what they do best- produce food.
"We need a far more wide scale reform of the CAP to bring it up to date with the trials we face in the 21st century. The challenges facing farming today are as numerous as the opportunities and we need a CAP that will embrace the opportunities and minimise the threats."