THE NEW EU commissioner for agriculture “pressed all the right buttons” when he met the Irish Farmers Association for the first time in Brussels yesterday.
According to Pat Smith, the general secretary of IFA, the delegation was impressed by Dacian Ciolos’s grasp of his brief and his pledge to defend the agriculture budget.
Negotiations are about to begin in Brussels on a new Common Agricultural Policy to replace the current one which runs out in 2013. Observers believe there will be pressure to cut the amount of money the commission spends on the sector.
Mr Ciolos told the IFA delegation, led by its new president John Bryan, that the agriculture spend was good value for money generating quality food, food security and support for family farms.
He also made it clear that he was opposed to the destabilisation of the family farm system and would be meeting all farm organisations in the union. The commissioner also said the commission needed to better communicate the benefits of the Common Agricultural Policy to the taxpayer.
He told the IFA group he would work very closely with the European Parliament which now has a greater say in what happens in the agriculture sector.
The IFA president stressed the vital role of the single farm payment to Irish agriculture and said the payment, worth €1.6 billion last year, played a pivotal role in supporting the production of high quality food in an environmentally sustainable way.
Mr Bryan said he had informed Mr Ciolos that farm incomes in Ireland were at a historically low level and the maintenance of the SFP in its current structure, targeted at active farmers, was critical to the survival of farm families.
“The EU agriculture budget post-2013 must, at least, be maintained at existing levels. Farmers and consumers have benefited greatly from the Cap, and both will lose if food production within Europe is not supported,” he said.
On Wednesday the IFA had accused Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority, of making “ill-timed, divisive and misleading” statements when outlining the potential impact of a move from the historic to a flat rate single farm payment system.