CAP leak exposes flaws in reform proposals, says CLA
Rewarding inefficient farming practices and placing an additional and unnecessary burden on the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) would be two undesirable consequences of the leaked CAP reform proposals, said the CLA today (Friday 9 September).
The key points leaked from a document due to be published on 12 October include the proposal that farmers with less than seven percent of land in environmental management will have payments reduced by 30 percent. Also, farmers and landowners who claim more than Euro 150,000 would have their payments capped. However, it would be permissible to offset agricultural wages against this reduction.
CLA President William Worsley said: We are pleased that CAP reform proposals recognise the huge benefits which farmers and land managers can provide, but capping is a mistake, and offsetting wages but no other business costs against the payment cap discourages modern, efficient farming methods. The use of the CAP as an instrument for job creation is ill-conceived.
We are also concerned about the RPAs ability to cope with the additional burden of administering this change. Its role will be further complicated by the introduction of a new definition of active farmer, which may cause many existing contracts, agreements and licences to be rewritten, unnecessarily in our view.
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