The European Commission is set to publish its proposals for the post-2013 reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on Wednesday. In the run-up to the publication several leaked documents from the Commission detailing proposals have sparked criticism from environmentalists and farmers alike. image expired

Industry commentators, most vociferous amongst whom is NFU President Peter Kendall, have said any reforms which aim to ‘green’ the CAP could inhibit productivity in European farming. They claim making a proportion of the single payment dependent on environmental performance would jeopardise farmers’ ability to grow more food, more sustainably, which is their professed goal.

However, NGOs and environmental groups have said the proposals detailed in the EC’s leaks amount to ‘greenwashing’, which may have no environmental benefit. The Commission’s high-profile pledge to ‘green’ the CAP is a means to justify spending billions of Euros on payments; the CAP accounts for in excess of 40 per cent of the EU budget.

Conservation campaigners, including the RSPB, have said the changes mean less money will be available for schemes and measures which actively protect wildlife and the environment. Although environmentalists have welcomed some of the proposed greening measures, they say these are no substitute for the agri-environmental schemes, funding for which may be squeezed as part of the proposals. The RSPB said good farming practice and agri-environmental schemes have resulted in a resurgence of some farmland birds in the UK, though this may now be under threat.

The Westminster government has also expressed a desire to move CAP away from single payments in favour of supporting more environmental improvements and making more of a ‘competitive’ market. Over the past months Jim Paice, Minister for Agriculture, has been meeting with likeminded European politicians to forge an alliance.

The government has called for the introduction of wildlife corridors and strips around fields which provide food and shelter for wildlife as opposed to set-aside, which they feel could lead farmers to plough up pasture before the new rules come into force. Under the proposals, 30 per cent of the single payment will be conditional on farmers taking measures to protect the environment.

Capping measures

More egalitarian elements, such as capping the amount of single payment a farm can receive and taking steps to ensure subsidy payments go to ‘active’ farmers have been welcomed across Europe, although NFU president Kendall has expressed fears that capping could affect some farmers in the UK, which has a larger than average farm size within Europe.

The commission proposes a cap of 300,000€ per year on single payments, with levies would be applied progressively on all payments over 150,000€. Currently, 80 per cent of subsidy payments go to 20 per cent of the EU’s largest farms bay production.

 The Commission’s proposals will be announced by agriculture commissioner Dacian Ciolos on Wednesday; Portuguese MEP Luis Manuel Capoulas Santos, who represents the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, will take control of the Commission’s proposals on direct payments and rural development when they are formally handed to the Parliament’s agriculture committee on October 12.

French MEP Michel Dantin and Italian MEP Giovanni La Via will be the rapporteurs on the remaining two papers which complete the Commission’s package for reform and cover CAP financing and single market controls. The agriculture committee chairman Paolo De Castro, an Italian MEP, will oversee the entire package of reforms.