Mayo set to suffer under 2013 CAP

Mayo set to suffer under 2013 CAP


Edwin McGreal

While no final policy has been formulated, indications are that Mayo farmers will see a reduction in funding when the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is revised in 2013.
The addition to the EU of eastern European nations in recent years makes it almost inevitable that Ireland’s total take under CAP will diminish.
This will, naturally, make it more difficult for farmers to survive. The loss of some funding through REPS cuts last year has already had an impact on farmers, and Martin Gavin, Chairman of Mayo IFA, admits that the possibilty of further cuts to CAP is worrying.
“CAP is so absolutely vital to farmers in this county; we couldn’t survive without it,” Gavin told The Mayo News. “What people need to appreciate is that a lot of farming is taking place in a loss-making situation. That [compensation for that loss] was the rationale behind the setting up of CAP in the first place, and it has provided great support.
“In 2013 there will be change and we are going to fight our corner on that. Our stand is that the historical payments must continue and that producers should continue to receive the same payments. If further cuts come in you could see a lot of farmers simply becoming landowners … There would be a huge cost to the wider local economy. A lot of people may not appreciate that.”
In total, Ireland received nearly €2 billion from CAP in 2009, with Mayo receiving 6.17 per cent of that total. The EU spends about €43 billion annually on CAP. Mayo Fine Gael TD John O’Mahony feels that while some new countries in the EU may be considered ‘disadvantaged’, the same can be said of some west of Ireland small farmers. Any new assessment of CAP payments ought to take this into account, he said.
“One of the criticisms of the current policy is that you have large landowners drawing down huge amounts,” O’Mahony told The Mayo News. “Protection of the smaller farms is hugely important. In the new policy, some new large and less-developed countries will benefit. But, to some extent, we’re economically less developed. We’re on the periphery of Europe, and this needs to be taken into account.”
Martin Gavin, meanwhile, highlighted how difficult the recent REPS cuts have been, arguing that any further cuts to CAP will have a seriously corrosive effect.
“The new REPS scheme is capped at €5,000. The average payment per annum was €6,200 under the old REPS. That’s a loss of €1,200 straight away for the average farmer. The margins are too tight for that kind of swing. Without supports there is no doubt that farmers won’t be able to manage. Without supports there won’t be a farming industry,” Gavin explained.
Fine Gael county councillor Patsy O’Brien, who is also a farmer, argues that more, rather than less, intervention is what is now needed.
“With the present payments under CAP expected to go down and the loss of the full REPS programme, farmers need a stimulus package to keep going,” O’Brien told The Mayo News. “Over the course of the economic downturn, the only people consistently spending money in communities are farmers, and people shouldn’t forget that. If we don’t keep getting funding from Europe, the whole place will collapse, that’s the long and the short of it.”
Martin Gavin also expressed concerns about what many Mayo IFA members have called ‘over-regulation of the sector’.
“The cost of compliance is really extreme,” the Mayo IFA chief said. “We’re hugely bound by regulation – rightly so in one sense so we can be confident in the product. What is extreme is the rigidity of the enforcement [of penalties] for anyone who fails to comply. Naturally, I won’t condone anyone who fails to comply but when you see food imported with little or no regulation, and then competing with our product, it is frustrating.”

EAFRD explained
The reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2003 and 2004 saw the introduction of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). This involved a move away from providing  CAP payments as direct funding to farmers for output.
Instead, the EAFRD sought to fund farmers in a more nuanced way. REPS payments are administered through this fund, which is part funded by the EU and  part funded by the individual governments.
Farmers who have undertaken development work on their farms are also entitled to submit for funding under EAFRD. Our chart on the right features some farmers who have received funding to this effect. As Martin Gavin, Chairman of Mayo IFA, points out, the monies received tend to be matched by the farmers and bring much needed construction to the county.
Farmers can apply for funding up to a total of 60 per cent of the overall cost of the outlay of the development.
“When you look at the total amount of funding under EAFRD in Mayo for 2009 – €59 million – and realise that a good amount of that is for construction work on farms and that farmers normally have to match that amount, well then that brought a lot of work to the county at a time when there wasn’t a lot of work going,” Gavin told The Mayo News.
Others who benefit from EAFRD funding are community organisations, such as Leader groups. The South West Mayo Development Company, based in Newport, benefited most under CAP in Mayo last year, receiving €246,506.85. This funding is used for a variety of projects and initiatives, including the provision of rural development Leader grants.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to Gavin Sheridan at TheStory.ie and farmsubsidy.org for their help in obtaining the 2009 CAP figures.

Elsewhere on mayonews.ie
Mayo Recieves €119m from CAP