Defra to shift CAP balance away from environment

Mr Paice said the previous Government dedicated 80 per cent of its CAP rural development (pillar two) pot to environmental schemes and only 10 per cent to ‘competitive agriculture’.

But he said there must be ‘a massive shake-up’ to help farmers compete in a liberal market.

“Our objective is to move more CAP money into schemes to encourage competitiveness,” said Mr Paice at a Family Farmers Association meeting in Westminster this week.

“This will give farmers access to grants to help them meet EU regulations and to invest in environmental schemes and energy saving projects.”

Mr Paice said it was his ‘absolute priority’ to make sure that domestic agricultural production did not go down and he identified small-scale farms as one key sector to be maintained.

“Perhaps most importantly grants will be available to help family farms to reduce their cost of production,” he said.

However, the Minister rejected any measures which would ‘distort the free market’ such as minimum prices.  

“I agree from a sentimental perspective that these farmers might need extra support,” said Mr Paice, “but when you try to turn it into a reality is much harder without distorting a fair and competitive market.”

He said the Government’s job should be to help farmers ‘innovate, invest and compete fairly’.

“We have to create the business and commercial environment where farmers can use their skills, ability and capital to be competitive and to produce something the market wants,” he said.

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