Mr. Michael Ewing:

I thank the Chairman; he is very good.

The Environmental Pillar welcomes the opportunity to present evidence on Irish agriculture and climate change and is grateful to the Chairman and committee members for their time in hearing this presentation. We hope to offer some solutions to the crisis agriculture is facing in dealing with its contribution to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. We do this, in particular, with a focus on reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, post-2020.

The future CAP programming period is being examined, with a view to reforming the policy to address pressures and issues surrounding agriculture, food and rural areas in Europe. With the European Commission presenting its vision for a future CAP in its communication in November, the next step is for the Council of EU Agriculture Ministers to present its joint statement. Part of this process has seen the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine launch a consultation exercise to develop an Irish position on the future of the CAP. We welcome this with open arms. We are absolutely delighted that the Minister is taking this approach because we need to come up with a model for Ireland that will make us the star in Europe in agriculture and in the case of the CAP.

The Common Agricultural Policy has played a major role in the development of a socially, environmentally and climate-destructive model of farming across the European Union. The reform of the CAP in 2013 was meant to ensure measures to secure the sustainable management of natural resources would receive public money, with funds being ring-fenced for climate protection measureas. Unfortunately, attempts at real reform were thwarted by vested interests in lobbying member state governments and MEPs for a business as usual approach, leading to the intensification of European agriculture through CAP supports. It is to be hoped such a short-sighted approach will not be the conclusion of the current reform process. It is clear that a failure to address important and urgent issues in the European Union covered by bhe CAP may cause long-term and irreparable damage to the agrifood sector and rural areas in Europe as a whole. In its November communication the European Commission indicated that it was prioritising environmentally sustainable activities and basing rewards on them, which we welcome strongly. We will be keen to work with agricultural interests to ensure climate measures are adequately financed, in other words, we are totally behind public money being used for public good. Another innovative element of the Commission's communication was a focus on results-based actions. We strongly support an approach that is focused on delivering results rather than the more abstract indicators used to monitor or evaluate implementation of the CAP.

A third emphasis by the Commission suggests giving increased powers to individual member states when deciding on how to spend CAP funds. There is concern in some member states that this may create a race to the bottom in terms of ambitions for the policy. An ambitious CAP programme in Ireland that seeks evidence-based measures to deliver results represents a timely opportunity for Ireland to realign its food production system. Furthermore, with a likely reduced CAP budget for the next programming period, a member state that can demonstrate that the content of its CAP programme is ambitious, that seeks to build on a strong foundation of evidence, best practice and inclusive stakeholder engagement and that has social and environmental sustainability as core objectives is likely to be seen favourably during budgetary negotiations. CAP payments need to be targeted at recipients who are directly implementing actions to address EU priorities as defined by the objectives of the CAP. It is likely that this will require a substantial shift from the current distribution of payments under the CAP and recommended that this shift occur in a defined and transparent way during the course of the next programming period to maintain stability within the sector and allow existing CAP beneficiaries to realign their activities with the market or the mechanisms a new CAP would support. Part of this will involve simplification of the payments' process. Rather than farmers having to go through a multitude of contracts and agreements - we all know what they are - they should have a single contract encompassing both pillar 1 and pillar 2 to deliver on varying obligations under the CAP. Such an approach would see not only improved simplification for participating farmers as they would only need to go through one set of paperwork, it would also improve the integration of actions and undertakings between each of the elements operated as separate schemes. Such a co-ordinated approach could better address environmental requirements such as linking pillar 1 greening with agri-environment or non-productive investments. It would also link production activities supported by the basic payment scheme with non-productive activities, appropriate greening or agri-environment measures or similar.

In summary, in order to build a forward-looking agriculture sector that will make a significant contribution to the European Union’s climate mitigation efforts, it is essential to have a solid knowledge base, knowledge-sharing and an inclusive dialogue between all stakeholders, farmers, NGOs, scientists, decision-makers, etc. This should include a national and EU evidence-based set of data for the farming sector’s potential to achieve climate mitigation, including its socioeconomic impacts. It should also include a policy analysis assessing the extent to which this potential is being achieved and the role farming policy such as a reformed CAP plays and should play in it in the future.