Radical changes to European and British agricultural policy – including the scrapping of rural development within the Cap – were suggested by the president of NFU England yesterday as he prepares to stand down after eight years in charge.
Peter Kendall presented his vision to bring the Cap back to its roots in his last key-note address to the Oxford Farming Conference.
He said Cap’s founding principles to increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress, ensure the rational development of agricultural production and the optimum utilisation of the factors of production, in particular labour, so it could ensure a fair standard of living to the agricultural community were just as relevant today.
But those ideals had over the last six decades been forgotten, especially in the Cap deal agreed last June. The original Cap saw science in promoting technical progress as important. “Development of production should be rational – not, in other words, keeping lots of farmers everywhere in Europe if that’s not what the market, or agronomy dictates,” Mr Kendall added.
Mr Kendall said Cap was initially common through the price support it offered, but changes over the years saw them coupled which distorted the market as that encouraged farmers to produce to get a payment, not to meet market demand.
The biggest error was made by former agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler who created the European rural development policy by scrapping Cap’s founding guidance section which was used to increase productivity. Rural development should instead be in the hands of national governments, not Europe.
“Why do we need a European rural development policy?” Mr Kendall asked. “We don’t have a common urban policy, or even a common suburban policy.”
Mr Kendall who believed the UK, and other net contributors to the EU budget, would save money if rural development is a national decision so individual governments could decide how much they spend on agri-environment measures. Environmental protection must remain a European competence, but Mr Kendall said environmental enhancement should be in the hands of national governments as each had their own issues and priorities which should be decided themselves.
Mr Kendall branded the 2013 reforms a huge missed opportunity to correct the mistakes of 2003 and make the Cap more common, European agriculture more productive, more globally competitive and more market oriented.
“Instead of this strategic vision we got a tactical defence of the budget with the introduction of populist elements – greening, capping, small farmer and young farmer aid – and so on. This is a profoundly wrong direction and, in my view, the reform has failed, even in its own terms,” he added.
Mr Kendall urged Europe to change the regime to one which offers a simple, decoupled payment that declines over time and converges to a common rate per hectare for the same land quality with no national opt-outs or complicated conditions.
Ministers and officials had to stop trying to agree very prescriptive and detailed regulations, such as the girth of a tree which can qualify as a feature in an ecological focus areas.
They instead should be focusing on making the food chain work so if the aim is to wean farmers off direct payments over time, then they can get a fair return for their produce from the market.
Europe also had to focus on the technical progress as demanded by the Treaty of Rome, and make sure regulation is evidence and science-based. “We must stop the excessive use, and abuse, of the precautionary principle,” he added.
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