Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon is faced with a Hobson’s choice where the next CAP is concerned. The policy programme leaves most of the existing architecture of farm supports on the table. The problem is that there won’t be enough money to go around.
The minister is left with very few options.
The first is to retain all current supports, but cut everything proportionately. This can be characterised as the “slash” option, and would be a nightmare for farmers.
The second option is to decide which schemes are essential, and completely drop others. This is the “scrap” option, and seems barely more palatable. We’ve already seen a furious reaction to the ANC being moved from mandatory to optional.
It would be career-ending for any Government to get rid of a scheme that targets the most vulnerable farmers on the poorest land, particularly in the western half of the country.
On the other side, more intensive farmers are facing further massive cuts to their BISS payments, on top of those experienced through convergence in the last two reforms.
Eco-schemes account for 25% of the BISS payment pot, and seem an obvious and easy target, more or less matching the budget cut.
Pillar two supports, apart from the ANC, such as TAMS, ACRES and organic payments have no obvious source of funding at present.
And new initiatives such as enhanced payments to young farmers can only be financed by cuts elsewhere. The third option, the one farmers will demand, would be to negotiate the option of backfilling the CAP budget shortfall with domestic funding, maintaining farm payments in a similar way to what they currently are.
This, standing still, is the best farmers can hope for. That seems a pipe dream right now.
There may be nights where Martin Heydon dreams of a snap election, with Martin Kenny, Michael Fitzmaurice or Paul Lawless left to decide what gets scrapped and what gets merely slashed.
However, it looks like the hard choices will be left to him.
