Farmers are not getting adequate financial supports from CAP to protect food security, the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, conceded this week.

The Commissioner highlighted the fact that the CAP budget was now just 0.3% of EU gross domestic product (GDP), which compared to a defence budget of 2% of EU GDP.

“Food security needs to be treated like defence and energy security. Without food, nothing is possible,” he told the IFA national council.

Commissioner Wojciechowski also accepted the need to review the targets within the Commission’s flagship Farm to Fork strategy in the context of protecting food security.

The targets within the strategy, including those relating to reductions in fertiliser and pesticide use on farms, were political rather than legal targets, he said.

There was a call for farmers to seek changes to the current CAP reform, with the Commissioner stating that now was the time to lobby for changes to Ireland’s CAP plan.

Commissioner Wojciechowski thanked Irish farmers in his address for the huge contribution they play in protecting food security “at this difficult time”.