What way is your MEP looking to steer future farm payments?

Fianna Fáil MEP for the midlands-northwest Barry Cowen is supportive of keeping the CAP’s current system of entitlement-based direct payments and to continue onwards with convergence, rather than the Commission’s plans to fully level the per hectare payment playing field from 2028.

“I think we’ve made real progress towards full internal convergence – but there will always be winners and losers in a transition like this, and my priority is making that transition as painless as possible,” Cowen told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“That’s why I would support retaining the option of entitlement-based payments where needed and, in particular, provision has to be made for farmers in long-term lease arrangements and those who recently invested in entitlements, so that they’re not penalised for decisions made under the current system.”

Member states that are on course to reach full convergence under CAP should be allow carry on their current trajectory, Cowen said.

“On redistribution, what I have pushed for is raising the degressivity thresholds up to €35,000 rather than the Commission’s original €20,000 so that mid-sized, viable commercial farms aren’t penalised for being productive.”

The former-minister for agriculture is against the possibility of providing smaller farmers a scheme with a lump sum of up €3,000 instead of having to apply for the general direct payments scheme, warning it “may add administrative burden without necessarily reaching smaller farmers in a more meaningful way”.

Cowen was not shy about stating that Government will need to step up to the plate and deliver more funds to co-finance the CAP schemes that can be topped up at national-level.

“We will need to see how the final MFF [EU budget] negotiations play out, but my expectation is that co-financing commitments will need to be increased.”

Ireland south Fine Gael MEP Seán Kelly has called for a “serious revision of how CAP funds are allocated” as he doubled down on earlier comments that some of the biggest earners from the CAP are unfairly reaping large rewards for carrying out the bare minimum farming activity.

“We must put an end to super farms, which are increasingly more common in parts of eastern Europe mainly, drawing down enormous amounts of CAP funding,” Kelly told the Irish Farmers Journal.

While he is staunchly opposed to the Commission’s plans to reduce the dedicated funds for agriculture by over 20% in the 2028-2034 budget, the MEP is confident that the “strong opposition” that has been voiced from the European Parliament will see any move to cut funds to this extent scuppered.

The findings of an ongoing Department of Agriculture review of ACRES should inform the post-2027 agri-environmental scheme, Kelly said.

He suggested that the Commission’s intent to bring about a “better balance between mandatory requirements and incentives” looks to have strong backing ahead of the next CAP.

As a member of the parliament’s environment committee, Kelly is also keen to see funds ringfenced for environmental action in the EU budget.

He warned that Brussels’ proposed budget shake-up “would place increased pressure on the national exchequer, and would make it more difficult to prioritise these actions”.

Sinn Féin MEP for Ireland south Kathleen Funchion has welcomed the proposed full-flattening of area-based farm support payments as a move her party had been pushing hard for.

“Sinn Féin have been calling for full convergence of entitlements as the difference in values of entitlements for some farmers is huge,” the party’s sole MEP outside of Dublin told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“The current system where entitlements are leased and traded as a commodity is unfair. If the payment is linked to the land, then those who are actually farming the land should receive the support, which would seem fairer.”

Funchion suggested that a comprehensive ‘active farmer’ definition should accompany the move to flatten payments entirely to ensure that only “those who are producing food and managing the land” can access funds.

On agri-environmental schemes, Funchion signalled a need to learn from the current CAP’s Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) payment delays.

“I would hope that the Department has learned its lesson from the ACRES scheme, which was a disaster for farmers for the first couple of years. It was so complicated that the Department themselves couldn’t figure it out.

“We need to ensure whatever type of environmental scheme we have in the next CAP, that it is workable for farmers and that it is adequately funded.”

Funchion is backing a farm succession scheme that supports both the retiring farmer and the younger farmer taking the reins, stating that “the previous retirement scheme was too restrictive and punished the retiring farmer for having any involvement in the farm”.

Fine Gael MEP for midlands-northwest Nina Carberry, who sits on the European parliament’s budget committee, makes clear that while “there is no magic money tree”, there must be an additional €139bn in funds found to reverse the Commission’s proposed CAP cut and to keep current funding at levels adjusted for inflation.

Carberry was coy on her views of the Commission’s plans to axe entitlements, stating that the full flattening of area-based payments is something which “we need to think through carefully”.

“Food production must remain at the heart of CAP. But we must realise that a one size fits all model will not work for farmers in more challenging areas and environments.

“We need significant flexibility in our national plans,” she said of the future of direct payments.

The former jockey sees the option of providing smaller farmers with income support lump sums outside of the scheme that will take over from BISS as an idea “worth examining” to assess whether it could cut red tape and make schemes easier to navigate for the relevant farmers.

“But it must be voluntary, fair and designed around the reality of rural communities,” Carberry said.

“The scheme that takes over from ACRES must be simpler, better funded and more practical.

“Farmers are telling me repeatedly that the ‘Farming for Water’ scheme is a model that should be followed.

“We need more straightforward, simple and well financed programmes – just like this one.

“But farmers cannot be asked to do more with less,” she commented.

Independent Ireland’s sole MEP Ciarán Mullooly has made clear his view that the Commission’s 2028 plans to scrap the current CAP’s approach of basing direct payment values on entitlements linked to production levels over 20 years ago has been a long time coming.

“It is long overdue that we move away from payment systems based on historic reference periods dating back to events that occurred in 2000, more than 26 years ago,” Mullooly told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“Today’s CAP should reflect today’s farming realities, not decisions made a generation ago.

“A simpler area-based payment system can reduce bureaucracy, but any transition must be fair and must not disadvantage productive family farms or Ireland’s grass-based livestock sector.

“Redistribution should not penalise efficient producers or undermine farm viability.”

The MEP is opposed to the proposed scrapping of CAP as a standalone spending area under the Commission’s plans to merge it with other spending programmes, saying that “farmers should not have to compete with roads, bridges, housing, healthcare and other national infrastructure projects” for payments.

Independent Ireland’s man in Brussels said he is open to a new small farmer lump sum scheme as long as participation remains voluntary for eligible farmers and that the system does not create a “two-tier CAP”.

Mullooly also stated that the next CAP should look to reward farmers for taking environmental action and not portray them as “environmental terrorists”.

Fine Gael MEP for midlands-northwest Maria Walsh has said that the next CAP must look to limit the largest CAP payments to keep a check on the level of farm payments ending up in the pockets of Middle Eastern monarchs.

Walsh backs the Commission’s plans to put a hard limit of €100,000 on the CAP payments that can be drawn down by any single beneficiary and voiced broad support for reducing payments above a €20,000 threshold in graduated bands in a move Brussels terms ‘degressivity’.

“Countries like Ireland would be among the least affected by capping and degressivity, due to the nature of our farms,” the MEP told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“Estimates show that somewhere between 1-4% of the Irish CAP budget would be saved through capping and degressivity, whereas in countries like Czechia, this figure is closer to 50% due to the more concentrated nature of their farms.”

Walsh insists the largest payments must come under the spotlight with the Commission’s planned tightening of farmer funding as “we must look at every lever possible to make the CAP more efficient”.

“If we want a fairer distribution of CAP funds, we need a certain degree of capping and degressivity to tackle situations like the royal families of Dubai receiving millions of euros in EU income supports through land ownership in Romania, or the prospect of Ukraine joining the EU with their large farms.”

The Commission’s claims that it is moving from slapping farmers with environmental regulations to incentivising them to take environmental action does not woo Walsh, in light of the CAP’s overall budget cuts.

“If we replace regulation with incentives, we must ensure those incentives are properly funded.

“Without dedicated funding, I fear that measures which require national co-financing will lose out to income support and ultimately lose the trust of our farmers.”

Walsh is also pushing for a ringfencing of 10% of CAP funds for young farmers and a farm succession scheme that could operate over a five-to-10-year farm transfer timeframe.