Holyrood wants to link CAP cash with food in future

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Scottish Agricultural Arbiters' and Valuers' Association, in Edinburgh, Barnes said: "The challenge for us is to design a policy that encourages production without falling foul of any trade restrictions.

"The motivation is there, but the constraints should not be under-estimated."

For those who have expressed concern over the proposed change to area-based subsidies, he said "there is no other serious contender as a delivery mechanism for future support".

While the Scottish Government was supportive of producing food in this country, one of the main problems for those negotiating in Brussels is that the UK government has taken a totally different view; one that attaches little importance to food production.

Earlier, Barnes admitted there was little the Scottish Government could do to stop those who are no longer farming getting Single Farm Payment cheques as a result of previous farming efforts.

But he warned Scottish farmers, who were getting about 500 million a year, that they should be conscious the public expected value for that amount of cash.

Barnes also predicted that the total amount of cash in the CAP would fall.

"It could be 10, 15 or even 20 per cent less than it is now. It is very difficult to say."

There had been pressure by some countries to reduce the CAP cash by up to 25 per cent, but more recently other member states had been taking a more cautious view and putting faith in a community-wide farming policy.

Some argue that the amount of money going into the CAP has reduced over the years, but Barnes insists that while the percentage going to agriculture in the overall EU may have reduced, the actual amount had remained the same.

Barnes, who has spent some of his working life in Brussels as a senior negotiator on farm policies, suggested that one issue which might help prevent any major reduction in the CAP would be if the climate change agenda was included

Economist and rural consultant Peter Cook, also speaking at the meeting, agreed with Barnes on the need to assure taxpayers their money was being well spent.

"We have to be able to justify the cash that is coming in. We might get off with this for a short while, but if not, then we are done for."

He then described the move towards public money supporting environmental objectives as "back door support for production".

Cook also described the Single Farm Payment as an "extremely inefficient way of delivering support" and pointed the finger for this happening at the way it had been brought into being.

He was far more pessimistic than Barnes over the future size of the CAP budget, saying that when governments faced a tight budget, then it "could be up to 30 per cent less than it is at present".