| IFA President John Bryan said the Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith and the Government must totally oppose the damaging proposals to reform the CAP contained in the leaked communication from the EU Commission released this week. Mr Bryan said “the conclusion of IFA’s detailed analysis of the Commission proposals on the redistribution of direct payments shows that it would be devastating for the Single Farm Payment for productive farms across all enterprises. This would seriously undermine agricultural production in Ireland, with damaging consequences for the rural economy, agricultural output, food exports, jobs and farm incomes. They must be rejected by the Government.” The IFA President said the options included in the Commission’s leaked document would lead to a major shift in farm supports from the high-cost production systems in Ireland and Western Europe to the low- cost economies of Eastern Europe. John Bryan said there is a fundamental contradiction in the Commission’s proposals as they suggest ‘targeting support to active farmers to increase effectiveness and efficiency’, while at the same time they propose a basic decoupled direct payment on a uniform level to all farms. The proposal to move the LFA scheme from Pillar II to Pillar I is totally unacceptable, as it will undermine and dilute this vital support which sustains farming in difficult land areas. Mr Bryan also called on Ireland’s MEPs to come out strongly and reject the Commission’s proposals, which will damage Irish agriculture and Irish farmers. He said, “the Irish MEPs must use their co-decision powers to reject any proposals which will reduce the level of CAP support to Ireland.” Mr Bryan said the key objective for EU Agriculture Commissioner Ciolos must be to fully maintain the EU CAP budget. He said “Minister Smith must ensure Ireland’s national envelope is fully protected, and he must reject outright any proposal which will involve a reduction in direct payments to active and productive farmers.” Concluding, John Bryan said the IFA would direct the full resources available to the Association towards defending CAP payments post-2013. |
Saturday, 09 October 2010 09:54