The European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Christophe Hansen has said that he would like the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget to be index-linked in future.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, the Commissioner said that while he cannot predict what will happen in negotiations for the next CAP budget, he will push for a “strong and commensurate budget”.

He said that as Commissioner he would “need to pledge for more, at least have an adaptation to inflation because even if we maintain a budget in the end it is reducing”.

He admitted that there are additional challenges on farmers as the market does not reward them and that it is “ever more difficult” to make a living from farming.

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“We have to look at what has to be done and what can be done but we know the budget is proposed by the Commission and the member states to have their say and if they will be willing to contribute more, then, I would be very pleased,” he said.

He stated that farmers have told him that there is a lack of predictability in the CAP, given that it changes every seven years.

“If we are changing the goalposts every seven years then who is going to invest? It’s not predictable,” he said, adding that things that work well in the current CAP should be maintained and the elements that aren’t working well should be adapted.

The Luxembourg man said that where additional burdens, such as the Nature Restoration Law, are placed on farmers then there needs to be additional funding, but he could not say where this funding would come from.

When asked by Irish Farmers Journal editor Jack Kennedy how much funding would be required for this, the Commissioner stated that the funding “needs to be up for the task” at hand.

“It needs to compensate at least for potential losses in production – that’s the least – and we need to be creative to get other financing options in, for example carbon credits.

“But, before that, we need to see what is happening on the farms [around carbon sequestration] and benchmarking needs to be sorted,” he said.