Dr. James Moran:

The CAP strategic plan has been under development for the past 16 to 18 months, since we saw some clarity on the legislative framework at EU level. There is some hampering of the environmental ambition in the EU framework within which we are working, but it has given a lot more flexibility to member states than it had in the previous programming period. We are now in the final stages of the development of the CAP strategic plan. I would imagine it will go to public consultation in the next week or so and it will be submitted to Brussels for approval in January 2022. I presume there then will be a number of negotiations back and forth between the Commission and the Department to finalise the plan. It will be then rolled out on farms from 1 January 2023. Essentially, we have the next eight weeks to get this right.

In the draft interventions, we have seen much of what we and other partners have been advising. I must admit the Department gets a lot of advice from various different sectors and stakeholders whom it must pull together within the European framework.

The bones are there at the moment. I am worried that in these last crucial few weeks, key elements of what has been the success factor of these local initiatives will not be in place, including the flexibility of the programme. The green architecture of the CAP contains three broad tiers. In pillar 1 there is the baseline conditionality, rules that all farmers getting basic payment must adhere to. Much of this is basically adhering to environmental legislative standards and broad general guidelines. They need to be set at a level that meets the legislative proposals.

In addition, 25% of the funding in pillar 1 goes to these new eco scheme models. At the moment I am concerned that some of these are basically repackaging of the baseline conditionality rather than a step in the ambition. I would hope that in pillar 1 there would basically be secure infrastructure across farms that can be paid on the quality of them in pillar 2 in our agri-environmental climate schemes, as has been demonstrated by the good work of Mr. Sheehan and Dr. Dunford in their initiatives.

When pared back, these three tiers must work in conjunction with each other. They need to be cognisant of and at least meet our international commitments. We can make this happen but it will require everybody buying into the vision in the next eight weeks or so and, importantly, when the detail on the implementation of these programmes comes in 2022. We always say the devil will be in the detail. We have 12 months in 2022 to make sure that when the details of the schemes are put in place, they work for the farmer, work for the environment and work for society at large.