Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

We had a long discussion and debate in the European Council yesterday on greening, an area where there is a flagship change in policy on the part of the Commission by insisting on 30% of the single farm payment being for greening. Farmers would only get it if they met certain criteria in how they farm. We have some difficulties with that and we are trying to negotiate solutions to it.

The real issue for Irish agriculture is the switch to an area-based flat rate payment, which is what the Commission is proposing for every member state. Irish direct payments have developed on a historical productivity basis, with productivity determining support, and that became the basis of the single farm payment. Farmers in Ireland have huge discrepancies between what they are being paid in some areas and other areas. The idea that everyone would get the same payment per hectare farmed would mean those with large, lowly stocked hectarage, and very intense commercial farms would get the same payment. That does not reflect the fact that we should be trying to support food production. Ireland, Italy, Spain and a few other countries have a huge problem with what is called internal distribution of direct payments, in regard to which we are working with the Commission to try to have some flexibility.

We will, undoubtedly, have to redistribute money. People who have been doing really well owing to their level of productivity in 2002 and 2003 will lose some of their direct payments in order to increase the payments for those who traditionally or historically have not done so well because they were not as productive in the base years of 2002 and 2003. We must try to manage the losses and the gains in order that we can move everybody towards an average payment. However, we certainly cannot get there overnight because if we were to do so, approximately 50,000 farmers would lose on average 30% to 35% of their payment - many of them might lose 60% or 80%, with the other approximately 80,000 farmers receiving an average increase in their payment of 60% or 70%. That type of redistribution of direct payments would impact in a very negative way on the productivity of Irish farmers in the context of Food Harvest 2020. There will be some redistribution, but we must put limits on it. That is the subject of the negotiations under way.

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