Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has given his backing to a proposal which would pave the way for Ireland to introduce a limit on direct payments in the next CAP.

As part of draft European Commission proposals, payments would be capped at €100,000 and deductions would be applied to those above €60,000. However, farm salaries would have to be deducted first before any limit would apply.

Cumbersome

At a meeting of European agricultural ministers on Monday, Minister Creed supported a proposal for member states to have the option of whether to include a salary exemption or not. He said the option to deduct labour costs would undermine the policy and that it would be administratively cumbersome to implement.

However, he added that there should be no limit on the amount farmers could receive under agri-environmental schemes, particularly the newly proposed eco-scheme in pillar one. Payments to young farmers should also be exempt from any restrictions.

Budget

Minister Creed emphasised the importance of securing a well-funded CAP. He said without an adequate budget, ambitions will remain ambitions.

“It is not feasible to ask farmers to do more and more and more and yet collectively decide we will pay them less and less and less. Farmers won’t thank us for that and I don’t think society will thank us for that.

“The proposals as published do not represent an adequate budget for the ambitions we have in the years ahead.”

Much of the commentary supporting cuts to Europe’s agricultural budget has centred on new obligations in areas such as defence and immigration. Minister Creed said funds for new challenges should come from new money rather than robbing money from CAP.