A stew of options

By Matt Dempsey

The pressure of absolute national imperatives has transformed the original easily understood total decoupling proposal into a stew of options and half way houses.

Nobody can pretend that this represents a clear logical way forward for European agriculture. The amount of bureaucracy faced by individual farmers should be significantly reduced - once the national administration has actually decided which pieces of the policy to implement.

Presuming the seemingly inevitable agreement has been reached; they have plenty of choice with the most extreme example being in the case of sucklers, where the Governments can give the entire suckler premium to farmers who kept suckler cows in the references years and who in future opt to keep none at all, in other words total decoupling.

Or on the other hand the individual governments can insist that the full number of suckler cows must be kept to fully qualify for 100% of the suckler premium. In other words total coupling.

Likewise Governments look like being able to insist that 25% of cereal payments can be withheld if all the eligible land is not planted.

In the case of sheep Governments have the option that 50% of the ewe premium will only be paid if no sheep are kept with the other 50% dependent on keeping the full number of sheep declared for the reference years. Or they can decide that no cereals need be sown or sheep kept to qualify for 100% of the payments except for the rural world premium in the disadvantaged areas.

The partial decoupling menu is bewildering with the extra option of taking 10% of total payments and paying it all towards encouraging a specific type of farming - In Ireland it looks as if we will use it as a slaughter premium to encourage cattle to be finished in this country rather than be exported out as weanlings. In the meantime modulation - another name for simple cuts in payments will certainly come in but 80% of the monies collected will stay in the individual country collecting the funds. While another cut - degressivity will only be triggered if it looks like the budget is being exceeded.

One of the questions being asked is how much of this very large amount of National discretion will distort the workings of the single market. Theoretically the answer is a lot. In practise it can probably be lived with just as the labelling regulations, and maize silage subsidies are distorting markets and terms of competition but life still goes on.

On the dairy side we are coming closer to the cuts that were agreed in Berlin. After compensation it seems that dairy farmers will still face an unnecessary and undeserved cut of about 2c/litre or 7p/gallon.

As we go to press we are tantalizingly near an agreement - just as we were last week. But this time the crucial national priorities have been addressed. There is still the legacy of a bruising public personality difference between the French and Commissioner Fischler. While the reduction in the severity of the milk price cuts down to the level agreed in Berlin and the partial restoration of the grain storage increments may go some way towards pacifying French anger there will still have to be a reconciliation between the two if agreement is to be reached.

Before the effects on individual Irish farmers can be assessed the Department of Agriculture will have to decide on how to implement the menu of options that look like being available. This may well take some time.