Mr. Janusz Wojciechowski:

This is the second report about our evaluation of the young farmers support scheme. This report was published in June last year. It was presented in the European Parliament before two committees, namely, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Budgetary Control and I will outline the main conclusions. The main target of the young farmers scheme is the generational renewal of European agriculture. However, we did not achieve this goal. There is no generational renewal. This report shows we have very serious problems in European agriculture.

The first problem is the large reduction in the number of farms. In 2005, there were 14.7 million farms in the European Union. In 2013, it was only 10.5 million farms and the number now is approximately 10 million. In the European Union, we lose 1,000 farms each day. This is the tempo of reduction in numbers. Of course, it is possible to say we have bigger, stronger farms. However, there is the question of what should be the end of this process.

How many farms will there be in the long-term future? That was the first observation.

The slide on display shows the results of young farmers support in the period 2005-13. The blue line shows the number of young farmers, statistically defined as under 45 under the EUROSTAT category, in the European Union. The number of such farmers was 3.3 million in 2005 and by 2013, it was 2.3 million. That is 1 million young farmers fewer than before. The red line is the average size of farms. While that has increased a little, the data show that the area of land held by young farmers also was reduced in that they held 57.7 million ha in 2005 and only 51.9 million ha in 2013. There has been a reduction both in the number of young farmers and in the amount of land held by them.

The next slide shows that the number of young farmers fell in a majority of member states, that is, all but two, namely, Romania and Slovenia. The slide on display shows expenditure in the financial period 2007-13, when we spent €3.2 billion. Ireland was not a big beneficiary, as only 800 farmers were supported to the amount of approximately €6 million. In the current programming period, under the first pillar of the new system, for Ireland the amount is roughly €121 million.

The next slide contains very interesting data on the generational situation in European agriculture. The problem is that 80% of European farmers are over 45. They are not young as per the statistical category. One third of farmers are older than 65. There are only two member states in which the percentage of youngest farmers, that is, those under 35, is greater than 10%, namely, Austria and Poland. On the right hand side of the slide, we can see the percentage of farmers older than 65. This figure is under 10% in only three member states, namely, Germany, Austria and Poland. As for the situation in Ireland, the youngest farmer figure is 6.3%, while the oldest is 26.5%. That is better than the average but there is a problem in that there is no improvement in the generational situation in Irish farming, as is the case in the majority of member states. Portugal was a big beneficiary of the young farmers support. It has more than 50% of farmers who are over 65. The slide on display shows that we have different situations in different member states. It is not a good idea to propose the same solution for them when the situations are absolutely different. The slide on display shows that expenditure for 2001-13 was €3.2 billion in Pillar 2. In this programming period, we have €3.8 billion in Pillar 2 and €2.6 billion in Pillar 1 for the young farmers.

The slide on display provides examples from our report that illustrate the lack of logic of intervention. The examples are from my country, Poland, and from Italy. This is not a criticism of the member states but of the logic of intervention. In Poland, for example, a farmer holding more than 500 ha received €100,000 as a direct payment and an additional €3,000 as a young farmers payment. What is the impact for generational renewal? There was no reason for the payment. Was he a new farmer or was he in need of an incentive to stay in agriculture? No. While it was good for that farmer's additional income, there was no link to generational renewal. In Italy, it was the case that a company was supported by the young farmers scheme because one of the shareholders was young, even though he was not an active farmer. This company achieved €8,000 as an additional payment. This is not logical intervention. We criticise this. The target is generational renewal but this is not a good way to achieve it.

As I said yesterday at the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Parliament, the main problem of European agriculture is that we plan the Common Agricultural Policy from a seven-year perspective but we need a long-term vision of the development of European agriculture, not over seven years but 27 years. What is our vision of agriculture in 2040 or 2050? We have to start our thinking about this. It is a political question to create this vision. It is not the task of the European Court of Auditors. We can observe, however, that this is the main problem. How many farms should there be in Europe in the long-term future? How big should they be? How many farmers should there be? Should we have industrial farming or organic farming? There should be a clear policy for the future. Maybe Commissioner Hogan will propose something. The lack of a long-term vision for agriculture is the big problem and the big challenge for the European Union.