12th
February 2004
Farmers braced for subsidy reform |
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| Tractor
ploughing a field. |
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A
new system of farming subsidies has been unveiled by the government
- with some farmers fearing it will make them worse off. It follows
EU reforms meant to break the link between subsidies and the volume
of production. |
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The
link between subsidies paid to English farmers and the level of production
is to be fully broken from 2005, Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett
announced today.
Mrs Beckett has told the Commons that a single farm payment will replace
the current raft of subsidies.
But to give farmers time to adjust to the changes, the flat rate payments
will be phased in between 2005 and 2012.
Different rates will apply to land in certain severely disadvantaged
or less favoured areas to the rest of the country.
Mrs Beckett has hailed the move as a decisive and irreversible shift
which offers huge opportunities to the farming industry.
EU states agreed last June to radical reform of the Common Agricultural
Policy (CAP) in a bid to break the link between subsidy and production,
which critics claim was costly and encouraged overproduction.
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| Margaret
Beckett has announced sweeping reforms. |
Mrs Beckett
said ending the link would free farmers to produce what the market
wanted and benefit the environment.
"I have decided that in England we should fully de-couple all direct
payments in 2005, including the new payments for milk producers,"
said Mrs Beckett.
"A single farm payment will replace the plethora of existing ones
and simplify the bureaucracy associated with them."
The payment will be based on a flat rate per hectare, rather than
on past subsidy-linked production.
Mrs Beckett acknowledged that to introduce a flat rate system next
year would be too destabilising. Because of this the scheme would
be phased in over eight years.
But shadow environment secretary Theresa May warned the Government
that it had merely replaced one complexity with another.
Mrs
May said the Tories backed the need for CAP reform but added: "You've
managed to come up with the one scheme that absolutely nobody recommended."
She pointed out that Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland planned
to adopt three different systems.
"This will mean four different systems for farmers in the UK and four
different systems will mean four different sets of rules, with four
different armies of civil servants implementing them on our shell-shocked
farming industry.
"It is hard to see how this is likely to cut red tape or do away with
bureaucracy," she added.
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