I get the concept of the Common Agricultural Policy. Many don’t. Whenever the issue of European farm payments comes up for scrutiny on the radio programme, it inevitably provokes critical listener reaction questioning the practice of subsidising farming.

The Brussels argument goes that farm supports are actually for the benefit of the consumer more so than the first recipient. But it is an argument that is wearing thin in a changing Europe. And as public consultation on the parameters of the next CAP gets under way, the model of dishing out roughly one third (and dwindling) of the total EU annual budget to underpin European food production (or subsidise farmers’ incomes) is going to come under even more rigorous scrutiny than before.

If public opinion begins to question the direction, feasibility and morality of CAP, you can be sure it’s an opinion which will be aped in the European Parliament, where the focus is shifting to issues such as climate change and immigration – issues which require a bigger chunk of a shrinking money pit, particularly where the British contribution will be no more.

And so our farmers and food producers have reason to be worried. That is even before they consider the consequences of Brexit. With so many dependent on the financial support of the single farm payment and Pillar 2 top-ups, medium- to long-term planning is blurry. The next CAP round will make farmers much more accountable, particularly regarding the impact farming has on the environment.

For example, there is a debate as to whether or not greening has made any impact at all and so you can be sure that the bar will be set very high for agriculture to play its part in tackling the climate change monster, with Ireland affected disproportionately by any new cross-compliance environmental instrument slotted into the next CAP round. So you have this and Brexit looming large alongside the daily battles with low commodity prices and of course weather, as any tillage farmer will espouse.

Brexit, low prices and disruptive weather are problems largely out of farmers’ hands. What they can influence, however, is the future direction of the CAP. But how many of them are actually aware that the public consultation process has already begun? They need to have their say. This is their chance to be heard before the politicians and other stakeholders – including the growingly important environmental lobby – take control of the preamble into shaping the rules of the next CAP.

When you see it all written down, all of these challenges conspiring against them, you have got to admire the continuing resilience of the farmer.

The CAP questionnaire can be found at https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/ consultations_en

Trump’s media manipulation

In journalism as in farming or any other profession, we are a family. We might be competitors but we stand up for ourselves and look out for each other. We have our paymasters to please but without “co-opetition”, we would not function as well. And so I cannot understand how the White House political corespondents have not taken a collective stance against the bullying of Donald Trump and his henchmen. In another example of his ignorance, when Trump refused to take a question from CNN, the other journalists in the room should have showed some integrity and backbone by refusing to ask another question in support of their colleague.

Can they not see that his modus operandi is to divide and conquer? Maybe a walkout would be right up his ally but at least it would show that there is some pride and honour left in the so called US mainstream media.