EU member states agreed their provisional opinion on how the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should work earlier this week.

As has been reported by Agriland, this partial agreement preserves some of the controversial aspects of the European Commission's proposals from last summer, but also makes some notable changes.

Some of these changes involve the definitions of 'active farmer' and 'young farmer'.

Active farmer

Under these new CAP proposals, an active farmer would be determined in such a way as to ensure that support is granted only to farmers engaged in at least a minimum level of agricultural activity, which may include part-time farmers.

The plans would require member states to apply criteria for active farmers.

The member states would be given some leeway on how to do this, but examples of possible criteria include income tests, labour input on the farm, and the actual legally defined purpose of the business concerned.

Member states may also choose to keep a "negative list" that explicitly excludes a farmer from being considered an 'active farmer'.

The closely related definition of 'agricultural activity', meanwhile, would be based on the production of food and other, non-food, agricultural products (as well as all the activities aimed at obtaining those products); and the maintenance of agricultural areas, including for environmental reasons.

Importantly, this article indicates that maintenance of agricultural areas would not be sufficient, on its own, to be deemed agricultural activity, and therefore 'active farmers' would be required to produce agri-products as well as maintain land.

Once a member state has decided how to define active farmer, payments under a number of CAP measures would be restricted to those fulfilling that definition.

Those measures include area-based income support; coupled income support; payments for areas of natural constraint (if a member state decides to make such a payment); lump sum payments for small farmers; support for risk management; and and support for farm relief.

For all other CAP interventions (including agri-environmental and climate measures; investment supports; and young farmer set-up supports), member states may apply the definition of an active farmer if they wish, but do not have to.

Young farmer

A young farmer, meanwhile, would be defined as a person (who fulfils the definition of 'farmer' in the regulation) who carries out an agricultural activity, and who is no older than an age limit set by the member state.

That upper age limit must be set at between 35 and 40, inclusive.

The farmer must also be the head of the holding for the first time.

The draft regulation provides that member states would be able to decide that a farmer can continue to be defined as a young farmer for a maximum of seven years after they first access support for young farmers in the next CAP, as long as they remain head of the holding.

Member states may also decide that farmers can continue to be defined as a young farmer if they received support from the Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers (CISYF) in the current CAP, again as long as they remain head of the holding.