The IFA’s national council is gearing up to mount a pushback against the European Commission’s plans to completely level the per hectare payment rate which will apply to the scheme that takes over from Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS)
after 2027.
The association’s position on the next CAP is to look for “some link to on-farm productivity” when it comes to income supports.
“The shift towards a flat-rate payment per hectare, with no transition period, unless attracting a favourable basic rate/hectare, risks replicating experiences of past CAP reform and negatively impacting the on-farm competitiveness and viability of already vulnerable family farms and rural areas from the outset,” the IFA’s CAP position paper states.
The association has left the door open to a return of headage-based income supports but it has flagged this backing as being conditional on the overall level funding available for income supports under the next CAP.
“All measures in the next CAP must increase/strengthen farm incomes and be measured against same,” the IFA has said on the budgetary pressures on the CAP resulting from the Commission’s plans for wide ranging spending reform in the EU’s next long-term budget.
Genuine farmers
The IFA maintains that “only genuine active farmers engaged in food production should be eligible to claim payments in the CAP”.
It flagged the possibility of setting a minimum threshold for a farm’s output or farmgate sales needed to meet eligibility requirements for scheme payments in the years ahead, but did not give an indication of the level needed to be deemed eligible.
However, the association has stated that a lower threshold should apply for organic farms, farms on designated land or those in Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC).
The call for “agricultural activity” to be the “decisive criterion” on eligibility to receive income supports puts the IFA opposed to the Commission’s proposals to halt income supports for farmers receiving a pension, as well as those that seek to curtail payments for part-time farmers.
Agri-environment
On agri-environmental schemes, the IFA’s focus is on incentives that “reduce the climate and environmental footprint of agricultural production” rather than bringing about an “extensification of livestock production systems or restricting agricultural activity”, especially on designated lands and peatlands.
Concerns that the “legislative timeframe, level of structural change proposed and complexity of negotiations” associated with the current round of CAP reform have also been noted by the IFA, which has said that a one-to-two year bridging arrangement should be put in place to safeguard farm payments during the switch over from the current set of schemes to those set for introduction post-2027.