The European Commission is putting “never seen before” pressure on Ireland to increase climate action in agriculture in its CAP reform plans.
t comes as a proposal to cap cow numbers under the planned flagship suckler scheme in the next CAP sparked furore amongst farm organisations.
Details of the new scheme were released as part of a public consultation on Ireland’s draft CAP strategic plan.
However, one well-placed source told the Farming Independent this CAP deal has “never seen before” pressures to satisfy the European Commission, who must give their OK to Ireland’s CAP plan before it can be implemented.
“The CAP deal needs to be agreed by the Department, by farmers but, also crucially, by the Commission. They are demanding that the CAP aligns closer with the EU Green Deal and without their approval, we don’t have a deal. We simply must show greater levels of climate ambition in this CAP while protecting farmers’ incomes too.”
The political agreement on the CAP reform in June means that the Commission will have the possibility to ask a state to correct its strategic plan if it is not sufficiently “coherent” with the Green Deal.
Member States must also “deliver” on recommendations the Commission issued to each country in December 2020.
For Ireland, the recommendations included increasing the contribution made by Ireland’s CAP income support to achieving environment and climate-related objectives. “Given the challenges the country faces, it is important that this happens,” the Commission said.
It also recommended further redistribution of farm payments through convergence and that Ireland should consider front loading.
During the last reform of the CAP, Ireland faced significant difficulty in getting EU approval for the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP), with the Commission seeking enhanced environmental action.
Last week, IFA Livestock Chairman Brendan Golden said that Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue must clarify his intentions on the suckler scheme.
He said while farmers will understand the concept of a reference year, any suggestion that farmers would suffer a penalty on their payments for existing cows if they increase numbers would be “unprecedented and unacceptable”.
ICSA Suckler Chair Ger O’Brien said suckler farmers needed a much higher level of support in the next CAP, but this could not come at any cost.
“We see a substantial increase in the number of dairy herds growing into hundreds of cows. It is unacceptable that the problem of dairy expansion would lead to punishing suckler farmers, when the average suckler herd is less than 20 cows and suckler herds of more than 100 cows are almost unheard of.”
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein’s Agriculture Spokesperson Matt Carthy said any move to restrict suckler numbers would hurt family farmers and be environmentally counterproductive.
