It’s been a feature of a succession of reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy that farmers are in favour of retaining a system they were opposed to upon its introduction a few years earlier in the previous round of CAP reform.

And so it is again if our reader survey is to be believed.

It revealed that a majority of farmers are opposed to recoupling of payments, preferring to stay with the current BISS payments rather than have them raided to create a fund for targeted coupled payments.

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It’s understandable; better the devil you know and all that.

But I wonder will farmers be as happy with a per-hectare payment when they realise that the average entitlement will be cut savagely? The cuts will dwarf those of the Ciolos reforms of 2014, and they will be more consequential than the Wojciechowski reforms of 2021, which brought in CRISS (front loading) and eco-schemes.

In fact, under the current CAP budget projections for 2028-2034, the future maximum flat rate payment could be lower than the current minimum entitlement value of €131.44. That will mean massive payment cuts for farmers with entitlements of higher value.

It gets worse. The proposed budget cut threatens funding for CRISS, which gives every farmer €40 on their first 30ha. It certainly means the end of eco-scheme payments currently worth €66 for every eligible hectare in the country. All that will take place without any coupling happening.

The problem is that most farmers won’t realise this until the final package is confirmed and then they will pack into hotel meeting rooms and mart rings across the country, if 2021 is anything to go by. But by then, the die will have been cast.

Any farmer attending the current round of IFA meetings will have been fully informed, but the attendances have been on the low side, when you think just how vital the issue is, and how complex.

Farmers would rather go to a tractor protest than sit in a room for hours as the minutiae of the MFF and DABIS are explained. Farmers would also rather roll a field in than pick stones, but if you don’t do both, you’re likely to have a flag or boulder go up the silage harvester or combine.

Two things were clear from Commissioner Hansen’s appearance at the Ploughing last Thursday. There is some growing momentum in favour of a better CAP budget, and decision day is looming large.

There’s only one IFA CAP meeting left, next Monday in the Clanard Court in Athy. If you intend on farming for the next decade you really need to be there.

If you are transitioning the farm to the next generation in that period, you need to be there even more. It really is that important.