EU Agriculture Commissioner, Phil Hogan launched his proposals for the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) last Wednesday in Brussels by way of what is described in Brussels language a “communication”.

By its nature it is a general statement of preferred direction of travel for the future of EU agriculture, the detail will be thrashed out between the three pillars of the EU (Council of Ministers, the Commission and Parliament) over the next year and a half.

No surprises

Overall there are no major surprises in the document either, with most of the policy initiatives frequently referred to by the Commissioner in various speeches since he took up the position in 2014.

Unlike the last Irish Agriculture Commissioner Ray Mc Sharry there are no revolutionary policy changes proposed for the CAP after 2020, rather it is a case of trying to fix the problems with the present model.

Simplification is the ambition and the environment is a central theme. The requirement for farmers to have a base environmental standard to qualify for CAP payments is further evidence of the environment bar being raised.

Autonomy for member states

The Commission are also moving to transfer as much of the delivery and implementation of the CAP as possible to individual member states.

Brussels will set the policy and the objectives and it will be increasingly left to individual members to deliver the CAP.

One area that will be hopefully looked at this time round is how suckler beef farmers are supported.

With the ending of milk quotas in 2015 and despite the milk price slump in 2016, there has been a significant move away from sucklers and the establishment of dairy herds.

Beef vs. dairy

The market doesn’t provide a high enough return from suckler beef to compete with milk.

Yet there are huge parts of the country that will never be suitable for milk production, so it isn’t an option for everyone.

For smaller, often scattered farms that are run on a part time basis alongside some off farm income, sucklers or sheep are the option.

A core element of the revenue from these businesses was historically the suckler cow payment but with the move by the CAP to a land based system this was lost to the sector.

The current CAP has provision for direct headage payments with discretion left to individual countries.

Poland and France for example have direct payments while Ireland has a suckler cow welfare scheme which isn’t quite the same.

In the 2020 version of CAP, Ireland needs to consider seriously the reintroduction of a specific payment that encourages specialised beef production.

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