CAP simplification process 'close to meaningless' - ICMSA
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) has slammed the current process to simplify the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Denis Drennan, ICMSA president, called on the European Commission and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine Martin Heydon to "spell out exactly what the latest farm policy simplification" means for farmers.
Earlier this week, the European Parliament and the EU Council presidency reached a provisional agreement which aims to ease the administrative burden for farmers under CAP.
The agreement seeks to increase the payments to small farmers, reduce on-the-spot checks and simplify the rules on conditionality.
ICMSA
However, Denis Drennan believes that "the simplification process itself desperately needed simplification".
"There’s no point in anyone pretending on this anymore; this ‘simplification’ process is close to meaningless, and the reality and the evidence suggests that policy and regulations are getting more complicated and harder on farmers by the day.
"There are more rules on farmers today than there was this time last year or five years ago, that is just a fact and ICMSA would challenge anyone to say otherwise," he said.
According to the European Commission’s initial assessment, the proposed simplification measures could lead to annual savings of up to €1.6 billion for farmers and more than €200 million for member states’ administrations.
"Farmers are estimated to save €1.6 billion per annum which sounds significant but is just over €175 per farmer per annum- which puts it into a proper context.
"Even at this, ICMSA believes that the basis for these figures need to be published and we are not convinced at all that even these paltry figures are the reality," Drennan said.
CAP
The ICMSA president claimed that the EU Commission "is simply playing games with farmers and were spinning ‘simplification’ while simultaneously making rules more complicated".
"There might be simplification for the civil servants involved, but there was precious little evidence of simplification for the farmers working within the process.
"This level of complexity matters much more than non-farmers imagine.
"If a civil servant makes a mistake in administering a farmer’s individual Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) Scheme then it’s a ‘clerical error’, if a farmer makes an error in his or her application than it’s treated as fraud.
"Nothing has improved at farm level while we have seen whole new regulations to veterinary medicines, the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), GAEC 2 and the upcoming Nature Restoration Law, to name just the most obvious," he said.
Drennan called for the delivery of "a level of simplification that will make a difference to the farmer producing the food on a daily basis".
“We have people at national and EU level talking about simplification while busily engaging in complication and it needs to stop.
"Farmers are genuinely terrified of making any mistakes and as the system becomes more complicated those levels of fear just grow and grow," he said.
