Signs of light at last in CAP reform saga

Significant progress was made yesterday on the environmental proposals for the next Common Agricultural Policy with concessions being made but for UK politicians and farming leaders any moves were but a first step in achieving much more flexibility.

The weakening in what has so far been a rigid stance by the European agriculture commissioner, Dacian Ciolos, was made at the start of the Agricultural Council meeting in Brussels.

But the commissioner made it clear that, while he was prepared to make concessions to his original proposals, the three main strands of his environmental policy remained, these being the creation of Environmental Focus Areas on all farms, the necessity to grow more than three crops to aid biodiversity and the retention of permanent grassland.

Specifically, he was prepared to consider that a definition of permanent grassland would include “traditional systems” which translated means that heather is likely to be allowable. There was also a suggestion that instead of a five-year period for permanent grassland, this would be moved up to eight years.

And in a minor concession on growing a range of crops on a farm to help biodiversity, Ciolos said farms below ten hectares would be exempt as would farms of less than 50 hectares where the main crop was grass.

Speaking after the meeting, UK farming minister Jim Paice welcomed the new flexibility the commissioner had introduced but felt that more still had to be done to accommodate the desires of UK politicians and farmers.

He saw the move on heather as good news for Scottish farmers but said the slight concession on the three-crop policy only demonstrated how inappropriate having a “one-size fits all” policy across Europe was.

Scotland’s rural affairs secretary, Richard Lochhead, said he saw the additional flexibility as opening the door towards further negotiations

He said: “By reconsidering the definition of permanent grassland to include traditional agricultural systems the commission have opened the door to a wider definition of what is eligible grazing land. This is an aspect has been a major concern for our hill farmers. We still need more progress on long-term rotation. The suggested move from five to eight years or longer is encouraging but we would like this to move further to ten years or longer.

For NFU Scotland, policy director Jonny Hall regretted that no move had been made on environmental focus areas (EFAs) which will see 7 per cent of land on all farms taken out of production.

He said: “We remain adamant EFAs fly in the face of encouraging the productive use of our better land and we will continue to press for significant changes to the EFA proposals if not there removal altogether.

“Scotland’s arable land is already stitched together by a green thread of hedges, dykes and woodlands that creates an abundance of corridors and habitats for wildlife.”

The next meeting of the Agricultural Council will take place under the Cypriot presidency as they take over from the Danes at the end of June. Paice said he was slightly afraid the Cypriots’ knowledge of agriculture in northern Europe might not help in the coming months but he was arranging a meeting with his counterpart from Cyprus to brief him of the UK’s farm policy priorities.