The NFU welcomes the commitment made by the Commission in its CAP reform package to create a new partnership between Europe and its farmers through the CAP.
We would strongly agree that the next decades will be a crucial period for farmers, particularly in light of food and energy security concerns amidst a growing global population. EU farmers must be in a position to make a meaningful contribution to increasing food production, whilst at the same time contending with increased volatility in agricultural markets, globalisation and dysfunctional food supply chains.
It is therefore essential that the EU retains a strong common agricultural policy and that the CAP provides the right framework for capturing future opportunities. With this in mind, the NFU is concerned by a number of specific aspects of the reform package, which may result in increased bureaucracy, reduced market orientation and therefore an increase in farmers’ reliance on CAP support. Members can read our briefing by clicking on the document to the right of this page.
- D Lockie - 18/10/2011
The effect of an open-ended subsidy policy is there to see; small and medium sized farms are disappearing at an accelerating rate as large agribusinesses and estates snap up available land, with no limit to the subsidy they can collect. If the current trend continues it is clear that within the next thirty years there will on average be only one real full-time farming business per parish, or in the Eastern Counties, perhaps one per three parishes. Does this matter? For decades the NFU has cried crocodile tears about the lack of opportunity for young people to get into agriculture, yet without a mix of farm sizes how can there be any semblance of a farming ladder? Smaller farms are inherently less efficient than large scale businesses, so surely if we wish to retain any, then support must be targeted towards them.
So in practical terms how might capping influence future trends? Suppose a 300 acre farm comes available. Land moves to the economically strongest, and under the current system it would be easy meat for the 5000 acre outfit next door. But what if they were unable to obtain any more subsidy if they bought it? Surely then the 1000 acre farmer on the other side, or the small farmer who was in a position to grade up, would be in a competitive position to bid? Of course mega-farms are free to expand as far as they wish; I just wonder why my hard earned taxes are required to help them to do so. And what about the large landed estate whose policy is to take in hand every farm when the tenant retires? If they are already at the limits of their SFP then they might find it more profitable to relet, and claw back much or all of the tenant’s SFP in rent. Indeed some very large estates may well find it economic to restructure their business by hiving off some of their in-hand operation to tenants who can collect the full SFP. So a limit on SFP’s would allow farm businesses to grow and develop, but above a certain level they would have to fund it from their own efficiencies.
The NFU hierarchy no doubt lives in fear of upsetting its largest subscribers, and will roll out its usual emotive arguments in opposition to capping, appealing to farmers’ most basic instincts along the lines of “we can’t have this, those dastardly foreigners will do better out of it than us”. But I would hope that the majority of farmers could look beyond that, and see what open-ended SFP’s are doing to our farming, and think about what sort of countryside we are going to leave to our grandchildren.