Marginal Areas Need Greater Cap Support

Much more financial support should be given to farmers in marginal areas under the Common Agricultural Policy health check this year, a Westcountry farming group has told Marion Fischer Boel, the EU Commissioner for Agriculture.

Without extra support now there was a serious danger that land would be abandoned, warned the Family Farmers’ Association (FFA), based near Kingsbridge.

The group, with members all over the country, wrote to Mrs Fischer Boel at her invitation to discuss issues that should be included in the health check.

“Our greatest worry about the new CAP is the small amount of actual help offered for food production and for the large number of farmers who have marginally economic farms,” stated the letter, signed by chairman Pippa Woods, of Aveton Gifford, and her seven committee members.

“It is physically impossible for all of these to take up other activities which would provide an income sufficient both to support them and to care for their landscape. The landscape in marginal farming areas is often very precious, and environmental schemes, as at present operated, are not generous enough to support families.”

It adds: “You are keen to encourage rural development. But where all food production is a form of rural development, it does not necessarily produce food or sustain a traditional farming community. It seems likely that the ability of a country to produce food with which to feed itself will become increasingly important. In view of the likely impact of climate change, combined with ever-rising population levels, food production in temperate countries will be essential for human survival. We fear there is now no longer enough support for food production to ensure that Europe will never go hungry.”

The letter goes on to give approval to proposals to set a ceiling on the amount of Single Farm Payment a very large farming enterprise can receive.

“We believe that the fact a fairly small number of farmers receive very large sums of money from the taxpayer does farming’s image no good,” it states. “Moreover, it gives the already large farmer cash with which to outbid his smaller neighbour for the purchase of extra land which the smaller farmer genuinely needs to survive.

“The percentage deductions you suggest would go some way to reducing the long-standing anomaly whereby the largest part of total support goes to the relatively small number of very large farms.”

It continues by saying the abolition of set-aside was good news, in particular for farmers who had found the designation as arable of their recently reseeded pastures was making them liable for increased set-aside.

But it adds: “There needs to be a stronger incentive to leave marginal parts of farms in a natural state for the sake of wildlife and biodiversity.”

The association voiced fears that the abolition of milk quotas might hasten: “the already serious exodus from milk production if, as is forecast, it leads to a reduction in the price of milk.” It adds: “Some means must be found to enable milk production to survive in marginal areas where it is the only feasible productive use of the land and thus the only viable enterprise available.

“Indeed this applies to any type of production especially suited to a particular area. Support may have to be recoupled to specific enterprises in areas which are only suited to very limited forms of production.”

On the true objectives of the CAP, the FFA told Mrs Fischer Boel: “Both for the sake of the small and family farmers we represent, and to maintain food production in Europe, we would like to see a much greater emphasis on supporting food production and the farmers who do the work, as laid down originally in the Treaty of Rome.

“We are concerned about the principle of decoupling, or disconnecting subsidies from basic farming activities, such as food production. It appears that a landowner only has to maintain his land in good agricultural and environmental condition in order to receive his Single Farm Payment. The effort may be minimal and the reward great.”

The association also voiced fears about the ease with which entitlement is trades – and called for continuing cuts to bureaucracy. The letter states: “Rather than the Government spending countless man hours and money on enforcing the already burdensome, and growing, number of regulations, there could simply be penalties for undesirable results.

“Thus farmers would be expected not to cause erosion or pollution, or mismanage their livestock, and might expect penalties if they did.

“Advice on good practice would be freely available, and it would be assumed that farmers followed it and farmed in a responsible way. This would remove the necessity for the vast number of inspectors and leave farmers more time to think about the best way to farm rather than worrying about how to keep within often pointless regulations.”

(c) 2008 Western Morning News, The Plymouth (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.