A set of compromise proposals on the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy are likely to be put forward to farm ministers meeting in Luxembourg tomorrow, the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, said yesterday, writes Sean MacConnell, Agriculture Correspondent.
He told a press conference in Dublin that a newspaper report that he had "caved in" on the central issue of decoupling production from direct payments was "a flight of fancy".
Predicting that there could be an agreed CAP reform package before the end of this month, Mr Walsh said he was still opposed to the concept of decoupling put forward in the original Fischler package with the majority of other Union members.
"Only two countries, the United Kingdom and Sweden, are fully behind decoupling and elsewhere, there is no great enthusiasm emerging for decoupling," he said.
"However, 27 different varieties of decoupling have emerged from different countries and these are currently being evaluated. We will have to wait until Wednesday when I expect a compromise paper," he said.
Describing this week as one of the "most crucial ever in the history of Irish agriculture", Mr Walsh said what would emerge would set the whole framework for the kind of agriculture we have here for a long time to come.
He said he had already made progress in fending off some of the likely damage which could have been caused in the original proposals to young farmers, retirees and mandatory inspections.
"In these negotiations, we want to retain our production base. Bases which have been built up over years, sometimes generations, and if these are switched off, they cannot easily be put in place again," he said.
H e had a concept of the kind of agricultural schemes he would like to see in place for the future and retention of the suckler (beef producing) herd was central to that, he said. "A lot of these herds are located in the west in disadvantaged areas where there are no other sources of income and these must be protected in these critical negotiations," he said.
Any proposal to decouple the 10 and 22-month premia payments would, he said, mean the value of calves would go down.
"There may be some value in the introduction of so-called National Envelopes, because these would allow member-states some flexibility in dealing with the situation in the future," he said.