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Various CAP reforms going right back to the early 1970s have taught us that coming up with a policy to support farming is not easy, and it is important to beware unintended consequences.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, minimum prices and intervention buying led to significant overproduction, and left the EU with the infamous butter mountains, and wine and milk lakes.
In the MacSharry reforms of 1992, intervention support was cut, and instead headage payments and other support schemes introduced to compensate farmers for lower prices.
In many instances it still led to excess production, while making farmers experts in filling in forms.
The next big reform came in 2005 when the decision was made to gradually decouple payments to farmers in favour of direct payments linked to land area farmed.
The result has been endless farm maps, new rules around eligible land, and entitlement trading.
In NI we managed to come up with a Static Vertical Hybrid Model that included a basic area payment. It brought every landowner into the CAP – a decision we have regretted ever since.
Fast-forward to 2018 and we now have sight of what the British government is thinking about with regard to an agricultural policy after Brexit.
Perhaps the most interesting and radical concept is that of delinking payments, starting from 2021.
The potential upside from this policy is that it could make land available at lower cost to those who wish to expand.
And by the time direct payments are totally removed from 2028, there will probably be a core of farmers in a position to survive and prosper.
But we also need to think through the long-term implications of the policy. How many active farmers will be left? What impact would this have on rural areas? Is there a real risk of land abandonment in marginal areas?
Ultimately, we need policies devised at home, not in Westminster, to suit our local needs.
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