The European project, which began in the shadow of the second world war, initially saw six members join the European Economic Community in 1957. France, Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg aligned with Germany and Italy, who had been on the opposite side of both World Wars over the previous half-century.

Ireland was part of the first expansion, in 1973, alongside the UK and Denmark. By then, the CAP was the most significant socio-economic instrument of the EEC, accounting for almost 80% of total expenditure. By the time Greece, Spain and Portugal joined in the 1980s, the CAP budget had soared. The market supports designed to encourage production in the 1960s and 70s were working too well.

So began a radical transition to farm supports, begun in 1992 by Irishman Ray MacSharry, Agriculture Commissioner at the time. Export refunds, aid to private storage (APS) and intervention, all market supports, were phased out.

In came coupled payments, with headage payments for ewes and suckler cows. The beef sector was targeted with two special beef premia for male cattle, one for animals nine months or over, a second for when they hit 22 months of age.

There also was a deseasonalisation slaughter premium for all beef animals killed in the first months of the year. Grain farmers received area aid for eligible land, but a proportion of mandatory set-aside was put in place to curb production.

The dairy and sugar beet sectors were managed by quota, and received no direct support, while fruit and vegetables were also outside the supports system.

Another initiative was the creation of the first agri-environment scheme. REPS appeared in Ireland in 1994, co-funded by the EU and the Irish government. The LEADER programme, to promote rural development on the ground, began in 1991.

It would be another decade before the second pillar of funding and programmes for rural development was formally split out within the CAP.

Only a decade later, Franz Fischler, a native of Austria, one of the three countries to join the EEC in the 1990s alongside Sweden and Finland, was the Agriculture commissioner.

He proposed decoupling payments from production, in part to place farm supports in the “green box” of non-trade distorting instruments within the World Trade Organisation. The average of all the money drawn down by farmers over the three years 2000-2002 was used to create entitlements for each hectare of eligible land.

A quarter of a century later, these historical payments still underpin the CAP. There has been a significant flattening of entitlement values under convergence, and the commission keeps proposing their complete flattening. CRISS, or front loading, pays more on the first ten hectares. Eco-schemes now account for one quarter of the direct payment fund.

Size of farmland

Currently, there is about 156 million ha of farmland in the EU, about 38% of total landmass. About the same amount of land is under afforestation.

Slightly over 50mha, almost one-third of all the farmland in the union, is in the accession countries of the 2000s, the former eastern bloc nations Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Czechia and Slovakia, and the two Mediterranean island nations of Cyprus and Malta.

In contrast, the UK’s exit from the EU meant a 17.2m reduction in farmland. That leaves a net 33m extra hectares of farmland

When we consider the near static CAP budget since 1992, particularly the farm-focussed first pillar, it’s not just in the context of inflation and the shrinking buying power of the euro.

We must also consider the much higher ambition around public good and environmental sustainability from what is essentially the same pot of money available to farmers purely for production support back in 1992.

Added to those two significant factors is the liberalisation of global trade since the 1980s, with much more market access for third country exports into the EU at low or no tariffs, and the complete removal of market supports for food exports from the EU.

CAP funding has increased from €37.9bn to €56.2 bn since 1992, a 48% increase over 35 years. But the volume of farmland has increased by 21% over the same time period, and most of the extra funding is for rural development.

The current budget proposals seem certain to result in less money for CAP, and for rural development.