Fran Morrin from the Department of Agriculture has said he is very wary of the European Commission’s proposals for the 2028 to 2034 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which were published last summer.

He referred to the proposals as being a “very strange” set of CAP proposals.

Among the proposals include more flexibility for member states to design a more tailored CAP as well as the merging of the current two-pillar structure.

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“We are still, truthfully, working through the proposals,” Morrin said.

“I think every member state has been so used to rules - what you can and what you can’t do. A lot of those rules are stripped out of those proposals. We’re very wary of that. Our goal in all of this is to make things as simple as possible for farmers, for us and for you [advisers].”

The Department, Morrin added, is fighting “tooth and nail” to ensure that the budget for agriculture does not drop by the 24% which has been proposed.