Common Agricultural Policy

[Pete Eeles]

From Martin Warren - please act if you're able!

Dear Branch Colleagues

You may be aware that this is a critical time for the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, with a completely new system starting in 2016. It has major implications to the funding of agri-environment schemes which are a crucial mechanism for ensuring farmland is managed for wildlife, including a vast number of important butterfly and moths sites across the UK and mainland Europe.

The EU is debating the proposals this year, but the initial discussions have been a major cause for concern and several really good proposals that would help wildlife were rejected by the EU Agriculture Committee. There is now a plenary debate and crucial vote by all MEPs and on 13th March.

Butterfly Conservation is part of a coalition of 276 NGOs across Europe urging as many people as possible to sign online letters to their MEPs, urging them to vote for measures that will help save biodiversity across Europe.

There is an article and link on the BC website

http://butterfly-conservation.org/48-34 ... side-.html

We are asking as many BC members and supporters as possible to sign the letter BY 13TH MARCH and forward the email to all their relevant contacts.

Thanks you in advance for your help, with your support we can make the next stage of CAP reform far better for wildlife.

All good wishes

Martin

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Dr Martin Warren
Chief Executive
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[David M]

Sent.

Butter mountains, wine lakes, etc....

The CAP was, until the expansion in 2004 from 17 member states to 27, the largest single budget in the EU.

All that (seemingly) to stop France from being brought to a standstill my militant farmers.

It's 2013 now. How much longer must this nonsense go on?

[Matsukaze]

Done...

Although...I have as little trust for the fritillary-netting bunting-slaughterers across the Channel as any, but cannot help noticing over there some rather nice displays of cornfield annuals presumably funded through the CAP - never come across anything remotely comparable in the UK. Is the money actually being spent more usefully over there?

[Roger Gibbons]

By way of follow-up, I received this email from my MEP:

Dear Constituent,

Thank you for contacting my office about the upcoming CAP reform vote in the plenary next week. Please allow me to respond to some of your comments.

I completely agree that it is essential that money paid from the CAP to our farmers for good farming practices helps towards enhancing the natural environment. However, during the vote in the Agricultural Committee last month Members of the Committee voted to limit the penalty for not carrying out greening measures to only the greening part of the payment (30% of the direct payment). As a result a farmer can still receive 70% of the Single Farm Payment (SFP) without doing the greening measures. This in effect makes greening voluntary for a farmer. Nonetheless, many farmers that I have spoken with already use greening measures, especially crop rotation, as they know the importance of these measures to maintaining a healthy farm and environment.

In regards to your comment about farmers being paid twice for in pillar one and two for greening, the Parliament widened the scope of "green by definition" which allows farmers to receive funding receiving payments under Pillar I for greening and Pillar II for agri-environment rural development measures. During the Agricultural Committee vote the Conservatives in the European Parliament voted against approving this double funding. I believe it is a waste and unnecessary duplication and hopefully it will be corrected during the Parliament plenary vote.

During the vote in the Committee, 10 of the 21 existing cross-compliance rules that farmers must adhere to in order to receive the SFP were either watered down or deleted. I am committed to protecting our environment and the natural habitats that exist in the UK and would therefore encourage farmers to continue taking responsibility as environmental stewards, even if these regulations are removed from cross-compliance. It is important to remember that if farmers violate these regulations they could still be prosecuted under the law. It is only their SFP that would not be affected.

Finally, I do support a variety of greening measures such as high nature value farming, including funding to upland farming as opposed to lowland farming, but it important that these are tailored to local conditions. I firmly believe that farmers are the guardians of the land and we should trust in their experience and expertise in knowing what is best for the care and protection of our soil, our crops and our biodiversity.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Sturdy MEP



I wish I had his confidence, viz:
"...farmers are the guardians of the land and we should trust in their experience and expertise in knowing what is best..." - if he had concluded this sentence with "for their profits", I would have been able to concur without reservation.

Roger

[David M]

Here's the reply I received:

Response from Dr Swinburne MEP.pdf

(220.36 KiB) Downloaded 19 times

[ScottD]

apparently they have voted - got this through this evening:
"Dear Friend,

Today the European Parliament voted (in a mammoth 150 minute voting session) on the four Common Agricultural Policy reports which will make up Europe's agricultural policy from 2014 to 2020. These reports will form the European Parliament's negotiating position which will dictate the direction of discussions with Council in the next stage of the process.

As you have been in touch with me before on my work in the Agriculture Committee of the Parliament, I thought you would be interested to see my initial observations on the vote:
So-called "double payments" have been removed (by 379 votes to 285) from the Rural Development dossier, which would have seen farmers able to claim for the same activity from two different funds.
Sheep EID has been reinserted into the cross compliance regulations within the Horizontal Measures file.
The Rural Development Report has seen the retention of a 5% ring fence for LEADER and higher co-financing rates for agri-environment schemes; agri-environment schemes and organic farming will receive a guaranteed 25% ring fence of the EAFRD funds.
MEPs approved a cap on direct payments of EUR 300,000.
On greening, we return to the Commission position on the framework of greening meaning three mandatory measures (crop diversification, permanent pasture, ecological focus areas), without the additional possibilities to qualify through an agri-environment scheme or an environmental certification scheme.
The retirement scheme for small farmers (payments to small farmers to leave their farms and sell them to other farmers to create more "economically viable" units) was successful.
MEPs voted to maintain the export refunds instrument which has a negative impact on food production in developing countries.
My comments on the general shape of the reform are below:

"This final vote has been a mixed bag with a few steps forward, a few setbacks but, by and large, I am quite satisfied with the result.

"There were a few red lines for me on the Direct Payments Report. However, thanks to the failure of the attempt to delete coupled support and the rejection of efforts to include mandatory but unworkable crop rotation measures, I was pleased to add my support.

"Rural Development, the report for which I was Shadow Rapporteur, saw the firm rejection of double payments by the Parliament. This should never have got through Committee and so underlines the value of these final full Parliament votes. Less Favoured Area reform has also been officially postponed for two years until we have adequate data upon which we can base our discussions which is a good move.

"One point of frustration is the passage of proposals on risk management on crop insurance and an Income Stabilisation Tool to "hedge" farmers' income against market fluctuations. This has the potential to eat up vast sums of the Rural Development budget, provides a disincentive for farmers to engage in sustainable and preventative practices, and pads the profits of insurance companies. My silver lining is that this is a voluntary measure which is very unlikely to be taken up by DEFRA.

"On the report on Horizontal Measures, we have seen all the cross-compliance measures that were taken out in Committee put back in again. This, unfortunately, includes EID. I hope to see the Council take a more pragmatic approach on this point in the forthcoming negotiations and am disappointed that the Parliament missed this
chance.

"Further, the small farmer retirement scheme is an embarrassment and should not be in the final report. Paying farmers to leave farming is a poor use of public money and undermines the need for diversity in farm size and types of holding - small farms are not necessarily inefficient as we have plenty evidence in Scotland.

"There is still some way to go before we can see the final shape of agriculture and rural development in Europe for the next seven years, but judging from this vote, there is much that can be welcomed for Scottish agriculture."

I hope you find this update helpful."

[JohnR]

...I have as little trust for the fritillary-netting bunting-slaughterers across the Channel as any, but cannot help noticing over there some rather nice displays of cornfield annuals presumably funded through the CAP - never come across anything remotely comparable in the UK. Is the money actually being spent more usefully over there?

I know of farmers here who get their Stewardship Grants and then fail to do anything that is required of them. The money goes into their pockets, yet there are others who go the whole way with conservation and then some. To put it another way, field margins are great for wildlife or field margins are just where the herbicide failed to reach.

[David M]

I've had responses from THREE different MEPs regarding the template email I originally sent and today I received this from 'Farming for Nature':


Thank you - you have made a difference! Here are the results from the CAP vote in the Plenary of the European Parliament


Dear DAVID MOORE,



Bitte aktiviere die Bilder für diese E-Mail.
Thank you for supporting our call for meaningful green reform of the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP).





Thank you for supporting our call for meaningful green reform of the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP).

You were one of over 85,000 people across Europe who took part, resulting in more than 1.2 million emails being sent to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), to leaders of the political groups and to key MEPs in the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee. Many of them have told us that your voice influenced how they voted.

As promised, a short update on the outcome of the European Parliament vote on 13th March is below.

Next the European Parliament, the European Commission and EU Member States, including the UK, will negotiate a final agreement, expected by the end of June. After that individual countries decide how it will be implemented. This means that there are still opportunities for us to secure a better deal for wildlife and the environment.

If you want to keep up with what happens next, you can visit the website of Wildlife and Countryside Link. Here you will also find links to the websites of those Link members campaigning on CAP where you’ll be able to find out how you can get involved again.Thanks again for playing your part; your help made a difference!

Amphibian and Reptile Conservation
Bat Conservation Trust
Buglife – the Invertebrate Conservation Trust
Bumblebee Conservation Trust
Butterfly Conservation
The Mammal Society
Plantlife
Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Salmon and Trust Association
The Wildlife Trusts
Working together on this issue across the UK through Wildlife and Countryside Link, Scottish Environment Link, Wales Environment Link, Northern Ireland Environment Link