A farm organisation has urged for the budget allocation to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to be increased "substantially".

The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) has said that the size of the CAP budget "will be the litmus test".

President of the ICMSA Denis Drennan was speaking following a meeting with Gijs Schilthuis, director, DG for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission.

Drennan said that the ICMSA stressed a number of key points in relation to the next CAP reform with special emphasis being laid on the question of the budget allocated to CAP in the next Multiannual Financial Framework.

“There is no point sugar-coating this matter; unless the budget allocation to CAP is increased substantially from the minimum €300 billion currently proposed, then CAP has no chance of meeting its stated objectives," Drennan said.

"We told Mr. Schilthuis categorically that an adequately funded and index-linked CAP is absolutely essential to the future of EU farming and must be strongly supported by our own government."

Drennan said that the ICMSA made it clear that CAP cannot be expected to support and fund "all the additional environmental and other measures being imposed on farmers".

The association said that separate budget headings will be required to address these matters. 

Simplification

On the matter of simplification, the ICMSA said it delivered the message to the commission to "talk to any farmer and they will tell you that they have seen no evidence of simplification at farm level".

"Just this year, in the throes of this simplification effort, we have seen further regulations added in relation to veterinary medicines and nitrates to name just two issues, while the insanely illogical EU Deforestation Regulations have only been postponed – not taken off the table completely," Drennan continued.

"Farmers understand the need for a level of regulation but are utterly frustrated by its unnecessary complexity and the constant loading and reloading of submissions on farmers where the commission already has access to the information it’s demanding.  

"What makes this even more irritating is that the commission persists with this practice while trying to ratify Mercusor where, realistically, we are entitled to have zero confidence in the regulatory process that’ll be applied to the farmers and beef exporters in the South American countries.

"Confidence and trust in both the commission and the process is collapsing under the contradictions that have been allowed [to] develop and become embedded."

The ICMSA president added that the "litmus test" is the budget that will be allocated to CAP.

"We’ll know immediately whether the commission is in earnest and serious or whether they are just going through the motions yet again," Drennan concluded.