Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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289. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the proposals he put forward at the recent Council of Agriculture Ministers meeting on CAP post 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12629/17]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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290. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he detailed at the recent Council of Agriculture Ministers meeting the need to provide additional funding for CAP post 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12630/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 289 and 290 together.

The discussion on the future of the CAP at the Council of Agriculture Ministers, which took place earlier this week, came at an opportune time, given the range of CAP related discussions that have taken place over recent months and in light of the Commission’s recent launch of its consultation process on the modernisation and simplification of the CAP.

The future of the CAP is an issue of enormous importance for the Irish and indeed European agriculture sector. The CAP has demonstrated its capacity to evolve very effectively in response to changing market, consumer and environmental demands in recent years, to the point where it now plays a central role in delivering the smart, sustainable and inclusive growth sought under the Europe 2020 strategy.

It is vitally important that the CAP continues its market orientation, and to evolve in a way that supports the achievement of European strategic objectives. This will help to reinforce the relevance and effectiveness of the policy, and to secure a strong CAP budget for the period post-2020.

The Maltese Presidency identified a number of priorities for the future CAP, based on recent discussions, and which formed the basis of the discussion at Council. These priorities are - building resilience; responding to environmental challenges; investing in rural viability and vitality; ensuring generational renewal; maintaining a market orientation; and, strengthening farmers’ position.

These priorities largely coincide with what Ireland views as the key challenges ahead. In our view, the overriding priority must be to support the sustainable intensification of food production, in order to meet the requirements of a growing global population while at the same time facilitating adaptation to climate change and mitigation against further change.

This can be achieved by sharpening the focus on outcomes, and by reducing the regulatory and audit burdens on Member States and farmers as they implement measures to achieve these outcomes.

In terms of addressing these priorities, I am of the view that a more holistic approach is needed. For example, in the case of sustainable intensification, Member States need to be able to identify objectives, such as the production of food in an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable way, and then be allowed to implement measures which will enable them to achieve those objectives.

Ireland’s Beef Data & Genomics Programme is a good example of a measure that achieves multiple objectives (improving efficiency, profitability and sustainability) while not fitting neatly within the existing, somewhat restrictive, regulatory framework. A greater focus on outcomes combined with Member State flexibility on the means to achieve them would help to address this problem.

This holistic approach can equally be applied to our efforts to build farmer resilience in the face of market volatility. The use modern and innovative measures such as futures markets, fixed price contracts and hedging arrangements have a role to play, but the direct payments system provides stability and certainty for farmers in the face of market volatility and should remain a key component of the CAP, as should other useful existing measures such as intervention, which has proven very effective in dealing with recent market difficulties.

However, in order to achieve these priorities, it is important that a strong CAP budget is maintained. The future of the CAP budget will be discussed in the context of the Multiannual Financial Framework for the post-2020 period. It is expected that the CAP budget will come under increasing pressure, which will be compounded further by the loss of the UK’s contribution to the EU budget. It will be important therefore to ensure that there is a commensurate CAP budget in place post-2020 in order for the new CAP to achieve its objectives.