The NFU has called on the EU Commission to give a clear commitment that farmers in agri-environment schemes will be able to withdraw, without penalty, if reforms of the Common Agriculture Policy require changes to the terms of their five year contracts.
This challenge, made by NFU President Peter Kendall at the Northern Farming Conference today, Thursday, is in response to reports that applications to the Entry Level Scheme and the Higher Level Scheme have been drying up in the face of uncertainty over the impact of CAP reform on these schemes.
Branding the Commission’s proposals as "a dog’s breakfast", Mr Kendall warned of the potential unintended consequences, which included the very real threat that the ’greening’ plans could actually damage the environment if they put farmers off joining the ELS or frightened them into ploughing up permanent pasture.
"The greening of Pillar One has obvious implications for some measures in the ELS" said Mr Kendall. "We are already seeing ELS applications drying up because of the uncertainty over the position of farmers’ agreements in the context of greening proposals. Will they be able to count their ELS commitments towards their greening obligations? Or will they face a double whammy of greening on top of ELS when the CAP reforms kick in? And, if so, will they be able to leave the ELS without facing a demand for compensation?
"Farmers need answers to those questions, and they need them now.
"We’re therefore calling on the EU Commission to give a clear undertaking that if the reformed CAP in any way alters the terms of the five year contracts, which farmers have entered into, they must be given the right to withdraw without penalty."
In the meantime, Mr Kendall appealed to NFU members not to attempt to second-guess the impact of the reforms by taking pre-emptive action.
"There is still everything to play for in making sense of these proposals", he said, "and the sensible thing to do is to keep all options open and so limit the unintended consequences of these ill thought-out ideas."
Mr Kendall also attacked the proposals for their likely impact on farming productivity.
He said: "In a week which has seen the world’s population reach seven billion, agricultural productivity has to be the number one priority for policy-makers. We need a policy framework which encourages a market focus, one that is geared to greater competitiveness and one that will help farmers generate the investment which is required, if we are to produce the food that Britain, Europe and the world is going to need.
"The Commission’s current proposals meet none of those criteria. They are a dog’s breakfast of sops to this or that lobby group, which threaten all sorts of unintended, but highly damaging consequences, both for farming and the environment.
"It is hard to say whether it is the requirement to grow three crops, the permanent pasture ploughing embargo, or the plan to force farmers to take seven per cent of their land out of production which is the biggest nonsense. Between them, they will narrow options, increase costs, reduce output and leave farmers tearing their hair in frustration at the absurdity of it all."
