It has emerged that British government officials, after having pledged to work to secure the best possible deal for producers throughout the UK in continuing negotiations, have been pushing for a means to reduce direct support for farmers across Europe under the reformed Common Agricultural Policy. 

The farming sector has reacted strongly to reports that government negotiators in Brussels are trying to give member states the power to reallocate up to 20 per cent of CAP direct payments to pillar two.  

Proposals for the reforms were unveiled last autumn following a number of leaks. Under the Commission’s proposals, which will be debated in the European Parliament for implementation in 2014, 30 per cent of CAP payments will be dependent on completion of various environmental considerations and a further ten per cent would shift into pillar two, going towards rural development.

The proposals place more emphasis on environmental and development measures as justification for spending such a large amount of the European Union budget on CAP payments. Studies have shown the European public sees farmers as custodians of the countryside and believes they have a duty to play a conservationist role as well as producing food. 

However, farming unions have claimed that, in addition to making 30 per cent of payments dependent on ‘greening measures’, allowing governments to allocate more money to rural development initiatives such as agri-environment schemes could put them at a disadvantage, if farmers in other states continue to receive full payments whilst those in Britain face cuts.

In a joint statement, farming union officials Peter Kendall, Nigel Miller, Ed Bailey and John Thompson accused the government of pushing for the proposed measures to force through its own ideological shifts. The officials said the government’s stance is an excuse to reduce its own spending on rural development measures.

In a joint statement, the heads of the NFU, NFU Scotland, NFU Cymru and the Ulster Farmers’ Union said, “This is nothing less than a blatant attempt by the UK government to disadvantage our farmers through unilateral national action for deeper and faster cuts. Through these CAP and EU Budget negotiations, ministers have the choice to argue for fairness for all European farmers and to make concerted efforts to secure a more balanced allocation of rural development money.

“Unfortunately it seems that our ministers are focusing their efforts on ways to reduce Treasury spend on rural development measures. We sincerely hope that ministers realise that this is totally unacceptable to the farming community and is a clear signal of intent to disadvantage UK farmers.” 

The union presidents went on to suggest “UK ministers are seeking to engineer ways to cut direct payments while other governments are looking for ways to increase them to their farmers through reverse modulation.”

A Defra spokesperson defended the decision, stating that the department believes a shift of funds from pillar one to two allows better targeting of EU money for measures that will benefit the public. The spokesperson added, “We want to see this across the whole of the EU, but we have to ensure that we have sufficient funds in the UK to continue our environmental schemes and to promote innovation and competitiveness.

“Because we do not know the likely allocation of Pillar 2 funds to the UK and because of the uncertainties on the outcome of greening proposals we need the flexibility to transfer funds if necessary.”

The UK receives the lowest allocation of pillar two funds per hectare in the EU, as successive governments have been reluctant to draw on funds that may affect the UK rebate.

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