Not too bad as it is only proposals from the Commission (so only draft, not more!!).. Only check UK broadsheets.
zero in the Guardian
one in the Telegraph but very very broad, focus more on tensions between France and the UK
one in the Independant, much better than the previous one
two in the Times, one column and one from its Europe correspondent
one in the FT with related content (editorial choice)
and bbc, mardell’s blog
On one hand, Mariann Fisher Boel
the initiative designed to make sure that the CAP is fit for the challenges and opportunities of today and tomorrow. read more
On the other hand, belgian farmers
“La commissaire persiste et signe dans une voie ultra-libérale”, commente le directeur de la Fédération wallonne de l’agriculture, Yvan Hayez. Et d’ajouter que Mariann Fischer Boel utilise de façon fallacieuse la crise alimentaire actuelle et la flambée des prix pour justifier des projets élaborés de longue date. (from the Belgian newspaper, La Libre Belgique) read more
According to the Walloon federation of agriculture, Mariann Fisher Boel uses food crisees and endless growth of food price to make the CAP more liberal!
clip made by the EU which came with the Commission’s proposals. It is not to do propaganda but I think it’s quite well made!
The catchword of the CAP health check is LIBERALISM; less interventionism, more farmers’ initiatives. It concretely means (according to the EU):
abolishing set-aside rules requiring arable farmers to leave 10% of land fallow phasing out milk quotas by one percent per year from 2009-13 simplifying the link between subsidies and environmental, animal welfare and food quality standards more flexible support for sectors with special problems moving some direct aid into rural development, to support renewable energy, water management and biodiversity and measures to address climate change ending market intervention in certain areas so farmers can respond more quickly to market trends
So for the UK, the proposals seem to be not too bad, except from cutting down hand-outs (about 100,000€/year at the moment) for large farms (most of the farms in the UK are large-scale as the Queen knows!!).
But for French farmers it could be a “disaster” for their wallet as direct aids would not depend only on production anymore and part of the budget for direct aids would move to funds for rural development ! It’ll be very interesting to follow the reform under the French presidency, from july to december,…we know already that French farmers will be backed by Barnier (see previous post)!!!!
Nowadays, climate change always hits the headlines and worries more and more people. But since a short period of time, another issue has grabbed them… FOOD CRISIS! As food prices are increasing incessantly, every single people is concerned by this worrying issue.
According to Franz Fishler, the former European commissionner of agriculture, these two issues could be faced together but on one condition, MAINTAIN THE CAP!! Here below read some extracts of the speech he made at a forum on the fututre of agriculture a few weeks ago. (to read the whole speech, click here)
This is the biggest food crisis since World War II. Food security is at risk of becoming the next serious market failure after climate change, which Nicholas Stern has described as “the biggest market failure in history”.
Without sustainable food security, and energy, water and environmental security, the relevant looming shortages will cause much human suffering and civil strife. Similarly, without more decisive action regarding rural development, rural areas risk to be given back to nature instead of being preserved and developed for people.
The market needs coordinated direction as to what kind of policies regarding energy, water, transportation, environment and indeed agricultural and rural development are the most appropriate ones to tackle the world’s overall socio-economic and political security requirements, including those of the developing countries.
There is no lack of critics about the level of CAP expenditure, which accounts for 1% of total public expenditure in the EU. But, farmers must wonder how they can be expected to contribute to satisfy world food demand, save energy and water, and preserve the environment, all at the same time, when farm payments and public support are on the down path.
Weakening, let alone scrapping the CAP, as a growing number of people advocate, would involve a number of risks, and actually mean throwing out the baby with the bath water. The risks include: production intensification with increased pollution, land abandonment with rural desertification and reduced farm output, accelerated urbanization with additional infrastructural and environmental costs, potential difficulties for the internal market, higher world food prices with serious humanitarian, economic and political consequences, in particular for the poor at home and for the net- food-importing developing countries.
However, the status quo is not an option. All countries in the world are called upon to restructure their agricultural policies, so as to produce enough food, improve their environment and open their markets. This notably holds for most food-importing developing countries whose policies favour urbanized people as against farmers. But it obviously holds for the CAP as well.
The CAP reform process is not quite over yet, far from that. Higher food prices do not suggest slashing the CAP budget, but using it in new ways so as to preserve and enhance EU capacity to produce food and a good environment in a sustainable way. Substantial investments will be needed to help respect cross-compliance rules and make farming more sustainable dealing with the negative externalities of production such as water pollution, promoting organic farming, adopting new, expensive technologies at an early stage, and rewarding farmers for the actual delivery of public goods, including the preservation of extensive farming. A real shift in CAP support towards rural development is of the essence. The
CAP must substantially increase its assistance to the multifunctional tasks of European agriculture so as to provide the services to society that the market does not pay for.
Slashing CAP support as from 2014 would thus mean European Council’s failure to appreciate that overexploitation of natural resources together with urbanization and globalization make it more, rather than less important to provide the budgetary means to tackle the challenges that we address here to-day. Besides, budget cuts would be counterproductive, because they would drive farmers to increase unsustainable production intensity, penalizing biodiversity, ecosystems, soils and water resources.
Here below you can watch two videos reporting Danish views on the CAP reform. Denmark, well-known as environmentalist, seems to want to cut down subsidies, or at least convert them to environment-friendly fund.
The first one (made by Euronews, an independant pan-European channel) is an interview of the Danish minister on agriculture. The second one (made by Eux.TV, an independant channel) mainly focuses on a Danish farmer.
Even if they are not the best reports ever made, they give a good sense on how farming is running in Denmark and which shift the CAP could take.
Both videos were posted on youtube one week ago.
Although food prices are dreadfully high, the French minister for agriculture, Michel Barnier, claimed that the CAP should be a model for Africa and Latin America.
Let notice that France which receive the higest amount of subsidies for agriculture will assume the EU presidency in July!
“What we are witnessing in the world is the consequence of too much free-market liberalism. We can’t leave feeding people to the mercy of the market” said Barnier in an interview with The Financial Times, published on 28 April 2008.
But opponents to Barnier are numerous. They think that the CAP is a system for rich countries with few producers who produce a lot and export a lot! And Barnier’s point of view seems to be going against the goals of the CAP health check which tends to cut down direct aids.
Here is an opponent’s reply, Liam Halligan for the Telegraph:
This isn’t just a bad idea. It’s an idea so self-serving - and dangerous - that political leaders everywhere should publicly rip it to pieces. Barnier - and Sarkozy too - should hang their heads in shame.
But far more worrying than these demand trends is the growing shortfall in supply - and this is where the CAP is so damaging. In recent years, global food inventories have plummeted - with wheat and rice stocks now only 15 and 18 per cent of global annual demand respectively, down from 30 and 37 per cent in 2000.
This is partly due to droughts and the high cost of oil - which hits supplies hard as modern farming is so energy-intensive. And falling inventories gives the lie to the argument that food prices are being driven mainly by speculation. If that was so, stocks would be growing, not collapsing.
Looking further ahead, while demand will keep cranking up, the medium-term food supply outlook is ghastly. With many mass-produced crops already pumped up by chemicals and genetic modification, numerous academic studies suggest that yield gains, having risen during the “green revolution” of the 1970s and 80s, have now levelled off. And there is compelling evidence of an ever-more pressing global shortage of cultivated land.
That’s why the CAP makes matters so much worse. The European Union is a huge agricultural player - the world’s biggest exporter and importer of farm products. And our bloated farm subsidies have, over many years, held back the growth of agricultural capacity across the developing world - the very centres of population growth now driving up food prices.
The CAP’s import tariffs, by the way, mean EU consumers pay much higher food prices than they should. But worse than that - far worse - is the external impact of our subsidies.
EU farmers are supported to the tune of £33bn a year - with the French receiving the most. The US plays the same trick, buying the farm vote with a similar sum.
The European Union walks straight away to modern wines! On Tuesday, EU ministers for agriculture adopted the wine reform which will enter into force on August 1.
The guidelines are not blurry at all. The member states and their wine makers will have three years to modernize, to grub-up and to restructure their wine sector. Unwanted surplus are over; it is time for positive measures such as wine promotion in third countries, according to the European Union.
This reform came within the scope of the Health Check as it’s meant among others to improve competiveness and environment.
Every member states will receive funding to promote its wine in third countries, to restructure vineyards and to support green harvest. Moreover funds from rural development policy will be deposited to spur young wine makers on, to improve marketing and to encourage early retirement, for instance.
In one word, wake up wine makers or you’ll go bankrupt!! Profitability, environment and competiveness will be the new motos in the wine sector…
photo credit: “Kathrin Schöpf” / www.youthphotos.eu, CC-License(by)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
Every member states (or regions if they are in charge of agriculture) must submit every year a programme of the expenditures of European funding for rural development. These rural development programmes must among others create new income opportunities and fight unemployment. Since 2007, they’ve to respect moreover a coherent strategy across the EU as a whole.
As you may know, more than 56% of the population of the 27 EU member states live in rural areas which represent about 91% of the European territory. But these areas are not very flourishing and lack of competition.
The rural development policy set for the period from 2007 to 2013 is meant to improve the quality of life, the competiveness of agriculture and the environment, and to diversify economic activities.
According to the Council Regulation 1698/2005, the member states are obliged to spread European funding between all the goals mentioned above. Rural development programmes are funded by the EU (the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development) as well as each country.
For instance, Cantabria, one of the three Spanish regions received for rural development about 152 million €, included more than 75 million € from the EAFRD.
Mariann Fisher Boel had to convince Walsh farmers – mostly women – of the legitimacy of the CAP Health Check this Monday (click here to read the speech).
She referred to the fussy topic, market support instruments, as a “safety net” instead of a “price setter”. Once reformed, these instruments will be more suitable for tackling high prices that every European consumer is confronted to at the moment.
She also promised to improve the payment system and to abandon the arable set-aside system and milk quotas, out of date according to her.
But the main goal of her speech was to persuade farmers that the CAP had to be modernised to respond to new global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity.
The rural development policy is entitled to provide farmers support to undertake these challenges. However there is still a “minor” problem: the budget of this policy is already in short supply for covering the current issues!!! So, right now, the extra financial source is still a mystery…
Hurry up! Less than one month to take part in the consultation on the CAP (end around May 20). Your voice should be taken into account if you write down your opinion on Mariann Fisher Boel’s blog. You don’t need to be an expert in the CAP and it concerns everybody. To understand a little bit more the CAP, have a look at the European commission’s website and the one of the commissioner on agriculture.
