To set aside €400 million to cover potential crises in agricultural markets, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) may be reduced through funds from the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF).

This has come from the so-called financial discipline proposal which is made each year.

The proposal for 2019 aims to reduce CAP direct payments more than €2,000 by 1.422184%. This excludes payments to Croatian farmers as they are still being phased into the scheme due to their accession to the EU in 2013.

The money saved will be used as a crisis reserve of €468.7 million (in current prices), made available in the 2019 budget. The rate is slightly higher than the one applied in 2018 of 1.388149%, which allowed a reserve of €459.5 million.

According to CAP legislation, amounts generated by financial discipline which remain available in the EAGF budget at the end of the financial year, including those of the crisis reserve, must be reimbursed to farmers.

Since the establishment of the crisis reserve in 2014, it has not been used, and the money set aside each year has been made available again to farmers.

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