Farmers in Ireland and all across Europe will be watching for signals on how the European Commission sees the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on Friday.
The CAP ‘Have your say’ conference follows a thee-month consultation process launched by Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan back in February.
The aim was to allow EU citizens share their views on the challenges faced by the EU agricultural sector, its rural areas and society as a whole, and on how a simpler, more modern CAP could potentially be used to meet them.
Friday’s conference is a chance to take stock of the results of the consultation and to see how they match the scientific evidence from the ground compiled by the Commission.
Communication
The results of both the consultation and the on-the-ground analysis will feed into a Communication on modernising and simplifying the CAP to be published by the Commission later in 2017 which will assess the different options for possible policy developments.
Non-farming influence
Worryingly for farmers, some 92% of all submissions on the future of the agriculture budget came from those not involved in farming.
Just 1,609 responses came from Ireland, with 320,000 responses received from across Europe.
The Irish contribution amounted to just 0.5% of the total responses.
Participation was even lower from the UK, which will not be covered by the next CAP after Brexit.
Nearly half of responses came from Germany. France, the largest agricultural producer in the EU, accounted for 12.5% of contributions, in line with its population weight. The third largest contributor was Italy, with 11.9% of responses.
ICMSA
ICMSA President John Comer believes that there must be commitment to fully fund the new CAP and if that meant increasing individual member states contributions, then that must happen.
“Ireland needs a fully funded CAP; we’ve benefited hugely from it and we still need it. If keeping a proper CAP means increasing the remaining member states contributions then Ireland must demand that is what happens,” Comer said.
Follow @farmersjournal on Twitter throughout the day for updates.
CAP focus turns to Commissioner Hogan
Only 0.5% of contributions to CAP consultation from Ireland
Farmers in Ireland and all across Europe will be watching for signals on how the European Commission sees the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on Friday.
The CAP ‘Have your say’ conference follows a thee-month consultation process launched by Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan back in February.
The aim was to allow EU citizens share their views on the challenges faced by the EU agricultural sector, its rural areas and society as a whole, and on how a simpler, more modern CAP could potentially be used to meet them.
Friday’s conference is a chance to take stock of the results of the consultation and to see how they match the scientific evidence from the ground compiled by the Commission.
Communication
The results of both the consultation and the on-the-ground analysis will feed into a Communication on modernising and simplifying the CAP to be published by the Commission later in 2017 which will assess the different options for possible policy developments.
Non-farming influence
Worryingly for farmers, some 92% of all submissions on the future of the agriculture budget came from those not involved in farming.
Just 1,609 responses came from Ireland, with 320,000 responses received from across Europe.
The Irish contribution amounted to just 0.5% of the total responses.
Participation was even lower from the UK, which will not be covered by the next CAP after Brexit.
Nearly half of responses came from Germany. France, the largest agricultural producer in the EU, accounted for 12.5% of contributions, in line with its population weight. The third largest contributor was Italy, with 11.9% of responses.
ICMSA
ICMSA President John Comer believes that there must be commitment to fully fund the new CAP and if that meant increasing individual member states contributions, then that must happen.
“Ireland needs a fully funded CAP; we’ve benefited hugely from it and we still need it. If keeping a proper CAP means increasing the remaining member states contributions then Ireland must demand that is what happens,” Comer said.
Follow @farmersjournal on Twitter throughout the day for updates.
CAP focus turns to Commissioner Hogan
Only 0.5% of contributions to CAP consultation from Ireland
SHARING OPTIONS