The questions at our CAP surgery yesterday ranged from the very general to the highly specific. Some people just wanted a general update on what’s happening in the negotiations. Others asked about their individual situation: will I be eligible for entitlements on the farm I bought in autumn 2011? Or, what happens to my five year agri-environment contract after the end of 2013?
So far today at the Royal Highland Show I’ve been with Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead at a few meetings with stakeholder groups, like NFUS and the new Scottish Beef Association. It feels like stakeholders’ views are crystallising around more specific points than previously. If I’m right, that will be helpful as we move further along the negotiation timeline.
June 24, 2012 at 10:32 pm
Unable to get to question you at the Highland but heard that sporting estates would not be eligible for subsidy? A local syndicate leases my farm for a pheasant shoot 8 days in the year, I’m also way over 40, have never owned any entitlements, have never had a Single Farm Payment, my collective farm diversifications subsidise my farm business. Are you aware of any other barriers on the horizon to my farm business reaching a level playing field come 2014.
June 26, 2012 at 1:48 pm
I think you’ve picked up on an idea circulating in Brussels, for a so-called “negative list” of the type of businesses which could, if this approach were adopted, be considered as de facto ineligible for CAP direct payments. It’s an idea which is being touted as an alternative to the much-derided proposal that we check every claimant’s non-farming income to see if they are a “real” farmer. Sporting estates were among the list of examples of land uses which member states could deem automatically ineligible if they so decided. It’s an approach which is already permitted in the CAP and which seems to have been used successfully in a small number of cases, Eg we understand the Dutch have removed farm payments from Schipol airport by ruling that all airports are ineligible. Aside from the fact that the non-farm income test is a terrible idea, the position we are taking is that we’re happy to discuss the negative list approach provided the power to decide who is and isn’t excluded rests with us, and isn’t imposed on us by Brussels.