While the UK is set to exit from the EU after March 2019, there is a growing possibility that farmers could remain wedded to CAP rules for a number of years after that, even to the point where the UK has to implement new CAP arrangements due to come in after 2020.

Back in September, British Prime Minister Theresa May floated the idea in her speech in Florence of a two-year transition period to help businesses avoid a cliff-edge departure from the European Union.

Impasse

Given the recent impasse over the Irish border, and the increasingly tight timeframe to get a trade deal done (effectively October 2018), that transition period could become more relevant, and perhaps even longer than two years.

It had been thought that during this period it might be possible to start a process of tweaking CAP arrangements to reflect a future UK agricultural policy.

Doubt cast

However, speaking at a meeting in Dungannon this week, Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) chief executive, Wesley Aston cast doubt on whether this can happen now.

“The indications from London are that if we are part of a transition deal, we will have to adhere to the CAP right up to 2022. We may not be able to tweak it at all,” he said.

He also put a question mark over whether Defra will actually proceed with its plan to consult on a new British Agricultural Policy in the spring of 2018, and maintained that at recent meetings with officials they didn’t know if a new policy was for before or after 2022.

“Everything is unclear at the moment. We might know more in the next 10 days,” said Aston.

However, it all means that farm lobby groups may have to pay closer attention to European Commissioner Phil Hogan’s plans for a new CAP policy after 2020. The first clear shape of how that policy might look was launched in Brussels last week.

Payments

On the issue of the pot of money coming by way of direct payments, the British government has previously confirmed that the £3bn per year to UK farmers remains to the end of the current parliament in 2022, either in or outside of CAP.