Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-38)
GARETH MORGAN, JENNA HEGARTY AND IAN WOODHURST
8 DECEMBER 2010
Q1 Chair:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. May I first of all welcome
you very warmly indeed. I am going to ask first of all Mr Morgan
to introduce himself and his colleague, and then Mr Woodhurst
to introduce himself for the record.
Gareth Morgan:
I'm Gareth Morgan and I'm Head of Agricultural Policy at the Royal
Society for the Protection of Birds. I am accompanied by my colleague
Jenna Hegarty, who is one of the Agriculture Policy Officers who
works alongside me.
Ian Woodhurst:
I'm Ian Woodhurst; I am the Senior Rural Policy Officer for the
Campaign to Protect Rural England.
Q2 Chair:
If I could just ask each of you a very brief question. I particularly
pay tribute to the work of RSPB in my own area and I have been
out to see the project. It was a particularly wet day but the
recreation of the wetlands and the contribution that that's making
is obviously very important. Working with the local farmers,
it was a joy to see. If I could ask the RSPB first and then Mr
Woodhurst afterwards, do you think we're focusing a little bit
too much on the environment in this round of reforms; too much
on the birds and the environment and perhaps not enough on people
and earning a livelihood? Bearing in mind that if you look at
the mission statement of Commissioner Cioloº
on his website, it is about a secure and stable income and livelihoods
for farmers.
Gareth Morgan:
Thank you for that question. You're not going to be surprised
by the answer. If I could deflect it slightly, if we do end up
in a polar debate about the environment versus agriculture and
competitiveness, I think we are lost in this round of the CAP.
We really have got to move forward on a twin-track approach.
One of the ways in which the RSPB would characterise is that
our long-term food security and farming industry is inextricably
linked with the good health of the environment, and that it is
in our long-term interests and the long-term interests of the
farming industry. I think when you talk to the farming unions,
who I know are going to be following us, I think a lot of them
share the same view that we do; that if we end up talking about
it as being a debate of one or the other then we are going to
have serious problems. Clearly we are going to be putting forward
a strong case today that the environment needs to remain at the
heart of the CAP and if anything become stronger within it.
Ian Woodhurst:
I would agree with much of what Gareth has just said. From CPRE's
point of view, we recognise that the environment is inextricably
linked to the social make-up of rural areas and the economies
of rural areas. The basis of these is the environment and that
includes the landscape, and the quality of the landscape is very
important for a whole range of rural businesses. Obviously from
CPRE's point of view it is essential to maintain our landscape
features. We think the best way of doing that is through agri-environment
measures.
Q3 Chair:
Mr Woodhurst first, in terms of maintaining the biodiversity of
the countryside, and all the different interest groups that you
and we all represent, do you think there is a "one size fits
all" policy or do you think that we need a menu of policies?
Ian Woodhurst:
The United Kingdom has had a very strong track record in delivering
those biodiversity benefits, the landscape benefits, in terms
of maintaining both habitats and landscape features. I don't
really see anything wrong with the policy approach we're taking
at the moment and that is recognised throughout Europe as being
a very good approach to the use of rural development money.
Gareth Morgan:
I think the debate about the extent to which the CAP should remain
a common European policy is going to be at the heart of the discussions
we are about to go into. Deciding what needs to be retained at
a European level in the policy and what is most appropriately
devolved down to national and sub-national level is absolutely
crucial. Clearly there is no point in Brussels dictating what
sort of agri-environmental policies, for example, are appropriate
in the south-west of England. Equally, if we lose sight of a
common policy I think both the environment and potentially the
farming industry has got a lot to lose. How we strike that balance
should be one of the major talking points in the next 18 months,
but, unfortunately, it is a little bit of a taboo topic still.
Q4 Chair:
You referred earlier to the farming unions coming in. You'll
be aware that not all farmers are members of any particular organisation.
Do you think it's necessary that financial support be paid to
all farmers to achieve the environmental benefits, such as biodiversity
or rural landscapes, or could this be delivered through more explicit
and targeted environmental schemes?
Gareth Morgan:
I think what we have established in England could form the basis
of a really strong European policy. The fact that every farmer
is entitled to an environmental payment should become a Europe-wide
concept. Not all farmers will want to avail themselves of that
but I think it's absolutely vital, and one of the principles of
the entry level scheme is that all farmers should be able to access
that money. In the longer term it will be helpful for those farmers
who are going to operate in the market to receive a clear signal
at this point that the income support they receive is in some
sense time-limited.
One of the major problems at the moment with the
Commission's proposals is that it doesn't have a very clear destination
and so farmers are left in a limbo about this. I think it would
be excellent if there was a clear signal in 2014 about those groups
of farmers that were going to receive income support in the long
term, for example upland farmers and marginal farmers, and those
farmers who should be looking to the market but who should be
able to access environmental payments if they want to make that
part of their business mix.
Ian Woodhurst:
Again I would agree with that. As has been said, we have a very
good model in the UK for agri-environment schemes and that has
been recognised in Europe and could provide a model for the rest
of Europe. I think we do also need to think about the push for
intensification, the push for restructuring and how we deal with
that because that will have quite significant impacts on rural
landscapes and the way that the countryside is managed overall.
Again, I think to have the option of the biggest recipients of
Single Farm Payments being able to do something to ameliorate
some of those impacts using agri-environment measures would be
essential.
Chair: It would be remiss
of me not to acknowledge the work that you do in areas such as
North Yorkshire as well, for which we are very grateful.
Q5 George Eustice:
I wanted to ask how much you thought was going to be possible
to achieve in this current round, because clearly people talk
about CAP reform, and it's been talked about with reform as the
tag for as long as I can remember. It is a very slow process
and very wide range of views. You are on the perhaps more hawkish,
reformist end of that in terms of putting the environment into
it. How much do you think is actually practical to achieve?
Ian Woodhurst:
I would hope that the Commission and the Governments of the Member
States would be as ambitious as possible because, as you said,
this has been going on for a very long time. We are still seeing
major declines in biodiversity; we are still seeing landscape
quality being degraded; we still haven't dealt with some of the
problems with water quality; we have possibly got massive problems
in the future to deal with the effects of climate change. This
is a golden opportunity to make a real difference to the way the
countryside is managed in Europe and it should be seized as much
as possible to make the changes that are necessary. I think it
will be a shame if farming unions don't recognise that, because
it is in their and their members' interests as well as in the
taxpayers' interest who are the people who are paying these monies
to the farmers for environmental outcomes. I think we will need
to seize that opportunity for change.
What we are really talking about is seen as radical
but I don't know how radical it really is to ask for more s funding
for sustainable land management given the challenges that are
ahead and the amount of funding that will be needed. So yes,
we are pushing a very pro-reformist agenda that some might see
as extreme, but I think it is absolutely essential that we take
this opportunity at this time, otherwise we will be back here
again in seven years' time asking why are we still suffering
biodiversity declines and facing the same problems that we have
now, but probably with the added problems from climate change.
Gareth Morgan:
Let's not beat about the bush. The two primary foci for the debate
that we are going to have over the next 18 months are the
budget and the way that the money is carved up between Member
States. That is an inevitability. I think the tragedy would
be if that was the total extent of the debate, and there is a
great danger it could be. That's one of the reasons we have been
working, for example, with the CLA and the European Landowners
Organisation to try and make clear that on balance I think the
environmental and farming interests need to get together in this
debate to make sure we have a slightly more elevated discussion
than just about who gets what out of the budget. That is why
in our evidence we suggested it should be about who gets what
for what. That's the interesting part of this debate that could
easily get lost.
Q6 George Eustice:
The CPRE talk about getting rid of Pillar 1 altogether, or certainly
weighting things quite heavily into Pillar 2 on environmental
schemes. Do you think that's something that is realistic in this
current round?
Ian Woodhurst:
Our position is as a signatory to Wildlife and Countryside Link's
Beyond the Pillars document, in that we want to see the
CAP reformed away from its two-Pillar structure into a single
policy and a single funding mechanism. We want to do away with
a lot of the complexity and administrative burdens that this kind
of architecture that's evolved since the late '50s has constructed.
We think there is a lot of value in looking at greatly expanding
Pillar 2 along the lines we have set out, and run in the way that
we use agri-environment schemes in the UK. CPRE does recognise
that there is a need for some kind of support elements, perhaps
as an income support measure, for those farming activities, and
management practices which are delivering environmental outcomes
or environmental public goods. That doesn't necessarily have
to be the traditional ones we see at the moment; we and the Commission
have identified additional needs to recognise and award farmers
for carbon storage, for water flow management from the uplands
down to the coastal areas. A lot of famers have a role in that,
but some farmers have a greater role than others. I think we
need to focus the payments on those farmers who are delivering
the most for environment and providing support for them if they
need it in some form.
Q7 Tom Blenkinsop:
In your evidence you express support for the Commission's option
three and you said, "We believe that the Commission's option
three for reform, which is explained in more detail in the Commission's
impact assessment document, has considerable but as yet untapped
potential to provide a clear, justifiable and sustainable vision
for CAP reform." The scenar 2020 impacts of these trade
liberalisations and the abolition of the single payment scheme
would lead to land abandonment in marginal areas and intensification
on productive areas. Do you agree with that and do you think
that there would be any potential negative consequences for biodiversity
and sustainability of resources?
Jenna Hegarty:
A number of studies that have been done in recent years looking
at the impacts of the loss of the Single Farm Payment from both
a farm-viability point of view and also the impact on the way
land is used in the UK and wider in Europe. The effects are quite
nuanced. Whilst more productive areas are likely to intensify
and less marginal areas may well extensify to the point of being
taken out of production, although not necessarily to the point
of land abandonment as is being seen in the wider EU at the moment,
we would also probably see a further simplification of agricultural
practices; so larger areas of single crops and a further shift
away from, say, cattle to sheep in upland areas. Those possibilities
have been quite well mapped out.
In terms of the impacts of SPS loss on farmer incomes,
the UK does not come out particularly well in the EU but what
is very interesting in all these studies is that none of them
argues for the retention of direct payments as a solution to these
issues. What they argue for are targeted measures. If income
support is determined to be a key objective, then who should that
go towards? At the moment it is targeted at everybody, but is
that really a meaningful way of targeting public money? In terms
of environmental effects or impacts, again, targeted measures,
whether through broad and shallow agri-environment or more targeted
HLS-type approaches, could be considered. Whilst the removal
of this system would inevitably have impacts, there are solutions
to those impacts that can work in favour of the environment and
farming incomes.
Gareth Morgan:
Perhaps I should make absolutely clear we are not talking about
a big bang type approach as they used in New Zealand. It is essential
that any change is phased in. I think some of you have been to
visit our own arable farm, Hope Farm, in Cambridgeshire. One
of the reasons we are running that is to look at a real farm example
of how this works. Most of our profit at that farm consists at
the moment of the single payment. We are acutely aware that just
taking away the rug of the single payments from farms at the moment
would have a devastating impact on farm businesses. It wouldn't
mean that farming stops; this is why we are stressing the need
for a clear route map that might take 10 or 20 years to reorder
the way that public support is given. Unless farmers are given
a clear signal about the destination, it is extremely difficult
for them to plan for that.
Ian Woodhurst:
I don't really have anything to add. As I said before, we recognise
that in some cases, particularly, we will need to increase support
payments or provide some level of support to the farmers producing
particular environmental outcomes. Other farmers may not need
the same level of support that some other sectors might do, or
some farms in some areas might do. To avoid being back here in
seven years' time, I still say that we need to have a clear path
to a different way of rewarding farmers to make sure that we get
the environmental outcomes that we need.
Q8 Neil Parish:
Do you consider food production to be a "public good"?
How do you want to balance environment and food security; do
you think they compete with one another?
Gareth Morgan:
Sadly we didn't bring our economist, who I am sure would have
enjoyed a debate with you on that. The way I look at this is
that food security is a legitimate public policy objective. It
would be crazy if the CAP didn't secure food security for its
citizens. The real issue is how it sets about doing that. The
evidence seems quite clear that giving farmers a decoupled payment
is not a particularly efficient way of achieving food security.
Clearly we need to proof the CAP against its impact on food security,
otherwise we would be running a huge risk. The more interesting
question there is how we support farmers in a way that ensures
food security whilst freeing up as much money as possible so that
they can be rewarded for the environmental services they can provide.
I didn't quite answer your question straight there, but that
is how I see it.
Ian Woodhurst:
It is always very difficult to know what people mean by food security.
Are we talking self-sufficiency?
Q9 Neil Parish:
A security of food supply then, if you like.
Ian Woodhurst:
Are we talking about resilience then or the capacity to withstand
food shocks or are we looking at capability to produce? I think
we have to be clear as to what we mean by food security. We can't
produce food unless we have some form of environmental security.
We need to make sure that the soil resources are there and haven't
been degraded; we have water supply issues to think about, water
quality and so on. I always wonder, in terms of England's role
in meeting the food security challenge, if we are looking at such
a massive increase in production —the Commission's Impact
Assessment talks about a 70% increase to meet the 9.2 billion
population increase—given the size of the United Kingdom
and the land use pressures on it that are so immense from all
different areas whether developmental, military training grounds,
food production and the need to have a sustainable environment,
how big a role can we expect to play in meeting that increase?
First of all we need to be sure and be clear about what we mean
by food security and what role we see for the UK in either export
terms or in meeting our own needs. The basis of all food production
capability is going to be the quality of the environment.
Q10 Neil Parish:
Can I come back on this because there is no doubt that with either
climate patterns or climate change, whichever it is, northern
Europe/Britain will have to do its fair share of food production
in the future. How do you see that? My idea would be that you'd
let the productive land almost be more productive, and that land
that is in environmental schemes get more out of it for the environment.
I just feel that in some ways, for argument's sake, if you're
going to reduce production on the very productive land in East
Anglia, where are you going to make up for that reduction? I
think that your environmental schemes come in on the less favoured
areas and on the difficult-to-farm areas. You will need livestock
and all those things. How do you view it going forward, because
we do have to have food production, don't we?
Gareth Morgan:
The RSPB is intensely relaxed about the notion of a food and environmental
security common policy which is one of the reasons we decided
to produce a joint statement with the Country Land and Business
Association. We don't see those two aims as opposed. I agree
with you that there is no point in looking at every piece of land
as equal in terms of what it can do in terms of food production
and what it can deliver for the environment.
Having said that, our experience of working with
farmers, for example in the Fens, is that there is plenty of scope
in intensive areas for environmental services to be produced.
The Fens are full of rare and threatened bird species; you can
find farms with plenty of skylarks and hares on them. There is
no reason you can't do that at the same time as farming intensively.
Equally, we want to see farming continue on the marginal areas.
It is essential, not just in the UK but countries like Romania
and Bulgaria, where there is low-intensity farming systems that
would otherwise be abandoned if they weren't supported. We need
to see farming continuing in those areas to produce food alongside
the environment goods. But I accept your premise: we have got
to be intelligent about the way in which we use different bits
of land and we shouldn't expect them all to deliver exactly the
same.
Q11 Mrs Glindon:
Related to the effectiveness and sustainability, what are the
main risks involved with focusing on producing a more competitive
European agricultural sector?
Jenna Hegarty:
It depends what you mean by competitiveness. I think some might
interpret that as producing more, or is it just making a better
return from farming? There are plenty of ways that improved competiveness
in farming can either be environmentally neutral or environmentally
positive. There are a number of ways you can add value to commodities
by either communicating the environmental credentials to consumers
and getting a higher price for it or doing more and doing the
same. I think that the UK's strengths are producing high-quality
agricultural commodities and it should focus on this more rather
than on a race to the bottom in terms of cheap and trying to out
compete. Whereas some might view factoring in the environment
at all stages of production as a risk to UK competiveness in terms
of either increasing costs or making things uncompetitive compared
with others outside the EU, I think this should be seen as an
opportunity in terms of added value, certainly for the UK farming
sector.
Ian Woodhurst:
Again I would agree with much of what Jenna has said. We have
to ask are we trying to continue to compete in terms of low food
prices without internalising environmental costs. Are we going
to compete to maintain those prices so that we can continue to
have massive amounts of wasted food, so that we can continue to
have serious health problems caused by obesity, and so on? We
need to think about on what grounds we want to compete, and I
think our strengths will lie in high-quality food and I think
the UK farming industry should play to that strength.
Q12 Mrs Glindon:
Going on from that, are there any suggestions for what practical
steps could be taken so that farmers could be both competitive
and maintain sustainability as well?
Gareth Morgan:
There is a phrase I use that is maybe a little bit glib, which
is "environmental modernisation of farming". It seems
pretty clear to me that farming is going to look different in
20 years' time; for example, if it is going to meet its commitments
on greenhouse gas reduction and if we are going to meet the biodiversity
targets that we recently agreed at Nagoya and our obligations
under the Water Framework Directive. The role of investment in
competiveness, to my mind, is to enable farms to make that shift
between the way that they are operating now and the sort of infrastructure
they are going to need to invest in to be able to perform at a
different environmental level. Now that could just be left to
the market but it seems sensible to me to use the resources that
we have under the CAP to enable farmers to make that shift at
the moment. To some extent, that would seem to me to square the
circle.
Q13 Chair:
Are you not worried about us not being as self-sufficient in production
as we were? We are importing a whole lot more that we were five,
10, 20 years ago.
Gareth Morgan:
"As we were when?" is the first question about that.
Self-sufficiency has clearly fluctuated enormously over the centuries
and I think one of the reasons we're not self-sufficient now is
that we like eating avocados and tomatoes in the winter and the
rest of it. We are never going to be self-sufficient in those
commodities at that time of year.
Neil Parish: Maybe with
global warming!
Gareth Morgan:
Maybe with global warming we might do more. You can grow bananas
on Everest if you try hard enough.
Chair: As long as we can
still have our Brussels sprouts for Christmas.
Gareth Morgan:
Part of our food security as a nation is about the trading networks
in which we are engaged. If I remember rightly, last year a diet
was tried out in Fife, and people there ate what was available
within Fife—rather them than me to be honest.
Chair: I wonder if we
should move on here. You might have a more luscious diet in Witney.
Q14 George Eustice:
Just on Fife, I wanted to broaden that idea. In terms of the
idea of capitalising on our higher animal welfare standards and
higher environmental standards, we are signed up to the WTO and
we are in a global agricultural market. How feasible do you think
it is to achieve those standards? The farmers will say it is
all well and good, but there is a symmetry here in that you have
introduced legislation that forces us to do these things and when
we ask how we can afford to do that, you say we should market
our production as being of a higher standard. But they are not
making that choice; if they were to choose to have higher standards
and market their production on those higher standards, that is
one thing, but there is a symmetry in that you are forcing them
to do it. What do you say to that? How feasible do you think
it is in an international market?
Ian Woodhurst:
From our experience at the CPRE with the work that we have been
doing on local food and mapping local food webs, I wouldn't agree
that farmers are being pushed into producing higher quality; I
think that is what a lot of farmers want to do. The farmers who
have done that have seen significant benefits in terms of income
through providing high quality foods. It has the additional benefit
of creating public interest in food, but I am not suggesting local
foods at farmers' markets is going to be the answer to all consumer
needs because quality obviously, even at large scale through supermarkets,
is very important. I think whenever we look at competitiveness
we see this push towards restructuring and consolidation, and
we see that in places such as Thanet Earth for example, which
offers a very extreme way of producing horticultural products.
We are seeing it come through in terms of the Nocton mega-dairy.
All of that suggests that quantity is the way to go, but consumers
have been giving quite strong messages previously on other food
items—chicken or pig meat for example—that they want
to see much higher quality and higher welfare standards. I think
farmers have benefited from producing food in that way, and I
don't see why they shouldn't want to continue down that route
rather than the lowest common denominator route.
Q15 George Eustice:
Just to push this point, with the WTO, do you think their remit
should be changed so that they could actually look at issues like
animal welfare in international trade negotiations? At the moment,
as I understand it, food safety is the only grounds on which free
trade can be affected. Do you think it would be a positive step
if issues like environmental and animal welfare standards were
recognised?
Ian Woodhurst:
I think that would be a step in the right direction, definitely
in terms of environmental quality and environmental sustainability.
I don't see any reason why, given the global challenges—and
biodiversity is a global challenge, climate change is a global
challenge—that the WTO shouldn't recognise that as addressing
these challenges legitimately adds value to farmers' produce.
Jenna Hegarty:
I think the criticism that we, as a member of the EU, get is that
this is just protectionism dressed up under another name. I think
if we were going to go down that route, which I agree I think
would be positive, there would have to be some global project
to support countries outside the EU to improve their standards
to bring them up to our level because we are all in it together
in terms of biodiversity.
Q16 Neil Parish:
Carrying on this theme about the fact that we need to improve
farmers' returns from the food chain, and we also want to encourage
organic, free range, eating the landscape, as we talk about, and
being cynical, how do we get the public to pay for it? They sign
up to it all but then they don't necessarily buy it. Have you
any magic solutions for that one?
Gareth Morgan:
I have every sympathy for farmers and their position in the food
chain on this. The supermarkets talk the talk on this but everything
we hear about it, particularly the mid-range and the lower-range
supermarkets, is that they go back to the farmers and expect the
farmers to bear the increased cost that that entails. I think
there are some encouraging signs of change. I am not sure if
it is Hovis or Warburtons that is currently making a big play
about using British wheat for their products, but we need to move
beyond that to making clear that the customer is potentially going
to have to pay a bit more for that. I think we also need to move
beyond just "buy British". I think it would be great
if Hovis said, "We're supporting British farmers who are
in the entry level scheme and doing great things for the British
environment," and putting that message onto the packs so
that people know that they are buying into that and that they
are going to have to pay a bit extra for that. But I wouldn't
underestimate the supermarkets and the way that they are going
to play this.
Ian Woodhurst:
Precisely. If we look at the milk supply chain, there is obviously
something not working in terms of how it and our supermarkets
function, which is why the National Farmers Union and the Women's
Institute recently launched a campaign to get greater transparency
in the supply chain for milk. Absolutely, we need to make sure
we're clear about whether the consumers are being given a choice.
Are consumers getting what the supermarkets give them or is it,
as the supermarkets claim, "We are just supplying what the
customer wants"? In terms of the CAP, it's hard to know the
proportion of any effect that can be achieved through what it
can dictate and what can be achieved by adjustments to the supply
chain in terms of the power of the supermarkets and their purchasing
power.
Q17 Neil Parish:
The point I was going to make is that we are putting in this new
food adjudicator—food ombudsman; it might be useful if both
your organisations could help in that because one of the problems
I see is that some of the farmers and farming organisations aren't
necessarily going to want to put their heads above the parapet
to get shot by the power of the supermarket. I know you do work
very well with farmers; it might be a way of joining forces.
Chair: Nodding of the
heads in agreement. That is very good, thank you.
Q18 Thomas Docherty:
I probably should declare that probably until about 10 minutes
ago I was a member of the RSPB.
Chair: Have you not paid
your sub?
Thomas Docherty: After
that crack, I might ask for my money back. Can I ask you both:
obviously the Commission wants to green Pillar 1 of the CAP, but
are you convinced that the Commission's proposals will deliver
genuine environmental benefits?
Jenna Hegarty:
Obviously, the Commission have set out a number of options and
it doesn't take a genius to figure out that option two seems to
be their favourite, which is a bit of a middle ground approach.
I think there are some really promising steps in the right direction
in terms of what they have proposed particularly the new compulsory
greening payment under Pillar 1, which explicitly links direct
payments to some tangible environmental outcomes. Obviously,
it all boils down to the detail. All we have got so far is some
suggestions including crop rotation and ecological set-aside,
so how beneficial this will be will depend on what they look like
on the ground. That is where organisations like us excel in terms
of populating detail.
We were quite disappointed that for all the talk
of greening Pillar 1 there really was only one new proposal under
it that actually linked payments to environmental outcomes. The
rest of the payments are either basic income support or support
measures for small farmers or marginal areas. I think what is
necessary in the next round, because of the increasing public
scrutiny on where the money is being spent, is that this money
needs to have environmental conditionality attached to everything.
That in turn will act as a means of income support and stabilisation
for farmers. It's a way of demonstrating that public money is
being used for tangible societal benefit. I think the Commission's
proposals could go a lot further along the lines we highlighted
and which option three has potential for but hasn't as yet explored.
Ian Woodhurst:
We've tried to green Pillar 1 through cross compliance but I don't
think it has really delivered that much and neither does CPRE
in terms of achieving good agricultural and environmental condition;
there is no guidance really from the European Commission on what
cross compliance should be achieving beyond the statutory management
requirements. I'm also a bit confused why, when the Commission
is seeking to reduce the amount of complexity within the next
CAP reform and the farmers' unions are also very concerned about
adding to that complexity, we are going to try and do something
that seems to be very complex and could add even more. Surely
the most simple approach would be to go for the more radical option
of not having a two-Pillar structure and making sure that all
the money therefore goes into providing environmental public goods
and ecosystems services provision. The danger is that with greening
Pillar 1 we would probably end up achieving not much more than
we have right now.
Q19 Thomas Docherty:
I think it would be fair to say that you would suggest that they
are not consistent with simplifying the way that the CAP works,
but do you think they would deliver real reforms by greening the
Pillar 1?
Ian Woodhurst:
As Jenna has said, there would have to be a much stronger push
for real environmental public goods, much stronger guidance and
perhaps there would have to be more targets focusing on proper
environmental outcomes. I think there is a danger that we could
have some sort of green wash of Pillar 1. That won't serve the
purposes of what we need to do in the next seven years in Europe
in environmental terms.
Gareth Morgan:
I really wrestle with this simplification issue. As you are probably
aware, the RSPB is a significant farmer in its own right. We
have several tens of thousands of hectares of land on which we
claim. We have had a cross-compliance check on our holding, and
I wouldn't say it was a nightmare—it is perfectly legitimate
and it is right that it is done—but it took dozens of inspectors
many weeks in order to check our estate was in order and we had
to jump through endless hoops to do it. We have seen it from
both sides.
Having said that, it must be right that if we're
spending £40 billion a year of taxpayers' money in Europe,
we are clear about what the taxpayer is getting in exchange for
that transaction. We need to find ways of satisfying the taxpayer
that they can be sure that it is a good investment without strangling
the farmers in red tape and we're obviously not there at the moment.
Q20 Thomas Docherty:
There's obviously a concern that by greening Pillar 1 it will
simply divert resources away from Pillar 2. Do you think that
is a fair assessment of the danger ahead?
Jenna Hegarty:
I think that is certainly a risk. Whilst there's a clear need
to improve and inject, where absent, the environmental delivery
of all CAP payments, there will always be a clear need for targeted
Pillar 2-type spend—whether it is called that or something
else—under agri-environment schemes. There are certain
species and habitats that will never do well under a broad-brush
approach that may deliver resource protection objectives or more
simple environmental outcomes. But going back to the 2020 biodiversity
target, agri-environment schemes will be critical in meeting that
and managing our protected site network.
One thing that is interesting to point to is the
Land Use Policy Group did a study on the scale of needs in terms
of the financing necessary to achieve the environmental objectives
already set out for the UK, and they came up with a figure of
between £1 billion and £3 billion, which is significantly
more than the current Pillar 2 budget. It is actually more in
line with the direct payment budget. I think there is a robust
evidence base for the need to spend more on targeted environmental
measures, whereas, as far as I know, there is not the same robust
evidence base for continuation of direct payments in their current
form.
Q21 Chair:
On the issue of simplification and complexity of the current arrangements,
how much is due to the CAP itself and how much down to gold-plating
and implementation by Defra?
Gareth Morgan:
As you are probably aware, the RSPB operates as part of a European-wide
partnership, Birdlife International. We hear quite a lot about
gold-plating, and I think in fairness the UK is not particularly
at one end of the spectrum or the other on this; we are about
mid-range. I don't think Defra routinely looks at legislation
and decides to embellish it. I think it is fair to say a lot
of this is actually embedded in the CAP itself. You are also
aware that a review of farm regulation is going on at the moment,
and we're very pleased to see that the emphasis on that is not
about reducing the environmental benefits that come from farm
regulation; it is about seeing if we can get those benefits in
ways that impose less of a burden on farmers, and I think that
is the right emphasis for that investigation.
Q22 Tom Blenkinsop:
Are you campaigning for retention of the CAP budget at current
levels?
Jenna Hegarty:
Going back to my previous point about the Land Use Policy Group
study and the scale of needs for environmental measures, the RSPB,
as a science-based organisation, will always argue that the CAP
needs tangible objectives, and we would argue for a public money
for public goods principle to underpin it all, and then a budget
that is commensurate with that objective. I think a significant
amount of work needs to be done on building on top of the LUPG
study to determine what that is in terms of the environmental
objectives we need to achieve to underpin long-term viability
of the farming sector. I would wager that to meet those environmental
outcomes the CAP budget would not be less than what it currently
is, although I appreciate there is considerable pressure for all
Member States to reduce spend.
Q23 Tom Blenkinsop:
Just one point: you were quoting the Land Use Policy Group (LUPG)
figures. In its communications the Commission made no mention
of the level of the budget, and the Commissioner said that they
trusted that the Parliament and Council would agree a budget commensurate
"with our ambitions". In those ambitions it fails to
mention agri-environment schemes at all. Does that concern you?
Jenna Hegarty:
Yes. I think the lack of specific reference to agri-environment
in the communication and then the impact assessment is worrying,
but through all our engagement with various officials, both at
Commission level and here, we hear, "Agri-environment is
safe; of course it will be in the next CAP." I think we
would feel much safer if we saw that in writing. Agri-environment
is a core part of the CAP; not just Pillar 2 but in terms of the
concept of rewarding farmers for sustainable land management and
recognising what it is that they deliver on their land. But yes,
the budget issue is sadly a game of politics, and we would like
to see the environmental objectives retained as a key priority
within the process of determining the level of the CAP budget
full stop. Then what level of spending is allocated to targeted
agri-environment spend must form part of the next CAP.
Ian Woodhurst:
Just from CPRE's point of view, yes, we do think that we need
at least what is currently in the CAP. The problem is that there
has never been a comprehensive evaluation across Europe of what
is needed when we are talking about European funding for environmental
policies. We know that, if we are looking at future challenges,
the Lawton Report—looking at landscape-scale conservation
and habitat protection measures for example—suggests a figure
of around £600 million to £1.1 billion would be
needed to establish that network in the first place, on top of
costs for the Water Framework Directive to improve water quality,
on top of the existing biodiversity funding costs, and on top
of the need to restore landscape character, which is not just
about maintaining landscape features but about our need to restore
things like traditional farm buildings. I really do think that
the money we are looking at in European terms is at least going
to be equal to the CAP and will probably need to be a lot more
because this is about land management. At the end of the day
this money is needed to manage land and to protect the countryside
and to maintain and enhance it, which is what the citizens of
Europe and the public have asked farmers to do. So my short answer
to that is: yes, we probably will.
Q24 Tom Blenkinsop:
So in terms of the whole problem, how do you think the budget
should be allocated between Pillar 1 and Pillar 2, and between
the income support and the environmental measures elements of
Pillar 1?
Gareth Morgan:
As you probably picked up from the tone of our answers to date,
we would like to see a much clearer focus of the resources on
the second Pillar. In relation to this overall budget question,
I think Mr Cioloº
has got this. He knows that unless he can make a really convincing
case that the CAP does things that European citizens value, then
saying that we need £40 billion, £50 billion, £60 billion
per year to the budget Ministers isn't going to work. My worry
is that not all the farming unions have woken up to this yet.
Unless collectively we can make a convincing case in the next
six months for these resources on the grounds that they do good
things for the environment whilst providing food security and
underpinning sustainable farm businesses, that budget is going
to be severely reduced. When push comes to shove from our side
of things, we are going to want the focus to be on environmental
payments if we are in the situation of a reduced budget. I would
rather be in a position alongside the farming unions of making
a case for CAP resources at the current level, but unless some
of them end this slight air of denial about this current financial
situation, that is going to be problematic for us.
Q25 Chair:
In terms of encouraging and incentivising farmers to do more for
the environment, do you think mandatory payments are the best
way forward? Mandatory payments for the environment. Is that
the best way to incentivise?
Ian Woodhurst:
It depends what you mean by mandatory. Do you mean it would be
for a percentage of land to be managed under environmental terms?
Chair: They would make
it much more linked to the environment. It's option two of the
Commission; one of the things they are proposing is a direct payment.
Ian Woodhurst:
I think the problem is that we are not quite sure exactly what
a direct payment is for. There needs to be an adequate amount
of money to manage the land and to produce the environmental outcomes
we need. I am not really sure if I would go down the line of
forcing farmers to take a mandatory payment..
Q26 Chair: To
a certain extent Mr Morgan has already answered it because he
said the Commission prefers option two. Can I just ask, if the
budget was not agreed this year, and the Commission was to proceed
by twelfths, would that impact on yourselves?
Ian Woodhurst:
It would definitely impact on the ability to deliver the environmental
outcomes we need. Inevitably any delay would have a knock-on
effect, as we have seen in the past when budgetary negotiations
have taken longer. With the current Rural Development Programme
for England, it took a lot longer to get some of the other measures
in place and to get them moving; I think that did have a knock-on
effect on farmers and consequently on the environment.
Gareth Morgan:
Not wishing to be flippant but for the RSPB, from a very self-interested
point of view, it wouldn't make much difference because our single
payment usually arrives about three years late.
Chair: We won't go there
on this occasion.
Q27 Chair:
Talking in terms of active farmers and the discussion there, do
you think, particularly the RSPB—being a major recipient—limiting
payment to active farmers would have an impact on your organisation
and environmental benefits to other non-Governmental organisations?
Gareth Morgan:
You have to be quite careful about trying to distinguish our self-interest
in this as an organisation and the broader interest in this.
I think this is an entirely distracting debate and I am not sure
who wants to have it or why. The pejorative term in Scotland
at the moment is "Slipper Farmers", which no one has
satisfactorily defined, and we could spend at least a year having
arcane discussions about who is a real farmer and who isn't.
Q28 Chair:
Do you have any tenant farmers?
Gareth Morgan:
Yes, in fact we have assigned a significant amount of our single
payment directly to our tenants because they are the people doing
the work on the farm. I understand the debate to the extent that
the payment is not intended to go to investment companies that
own land. In practice as soon as you have farm payments the money
slips up the chain and ends up with landlords however you do it.
It does less so for agri-environment payments. It certainly
does so aggressively for direct payments. It's capitalising
into land and into rents and it is very hard to get around that
problem.
I don't think we need a long debate about whether
the RSPB is a proper farmer or not: we have 15,000 animals; we
have wheat fields like everyone else. You could say that we don't
need the money in income terms and others do. For example, Butterfly
Conservation had a visit from the European auditors to work out
whether the sheep fields they had were for sheep or for butterflies.
I don't really think this matters. The whole point is this is
multi-functional agriculture, trying to maximise the benefits
for ecosystem services whilst undertaking agricultural activity.
For me that's the end of the debate, and I hope that we are not
going to get ensnared in what I would regard as an entirely distracting
discussion, but there are those out there who would love to have
12 months discussing it.
Q29 Chair:
I just think for certain tenants it is an appropriate discussion
to have. Do you have a view Mr Woodhurst?
Ian Woodhurst:
I agree for certain tenants it is probably a problem. I don't
think it's insurmountable and I think it shouldn't be beyond the
wit of either the UK Government or the European Commission to
find a way round it. Yes, it could be distracting because what
we want to see is the outcomes really, and who provides those
outcomes should obviously be the people who receive the payment.
If that's not working, and other people are receiving payments
who are not doing the management or undertaking the work or who
are not trying to up their environmental standards then that needs
to be dealt with.
Q30 Neil Parish:
I think you are right, wherever the payment goes it will be recognised
either in the rent or whatever because the landlord is not going
to let the land for less than what the payment is and it all adds
to it. My question really is on less favoured areas on hill farming.
Are you happy that the less favoured areas should be defined
by a bio-physical indicator? Also the Tenant Farmers Association
and the NFU would quite like headage payments in some places because
they feel there is destocking, especially of suckler cows. I
know from what has been quoted here that the RSPB might not be
in favour of that. What is your position on this?
Gareth Morgan:
The RSPB remains vehemently opposed to recoupling payments. I
had the good fortune to have lunch with the Agricultural Attaché
from the French Embassy today, who was enthusiastically explaining
why recoupling payments would be a good idea, which I have to
say, although I like him, makes me very worried about the proposal.
I think it is a slippery slope. I can understand why the Tenant
Farmers Association are attracted to it, but it's a short cut
and it would take us back to the days of the 1980s and 1990s of
milk lakes, grain mountains, wine lakes and the rest of it. A
little bit of recoupling sounds to me like being a little bit
pregnant. You either have a system that is about supporting famers
for what they produce or you talk about supporting them for the
benefits they produce for wider society. It's quite hard to envisage
a system where you have a bit of one and a bit of the other.
Q31 Neil Parish:
If you restricted it in particular areas, then I think your beef
mountains and milk lakes are probably not going to really affect
the global picture. The Republic of Ireland have a special payment
linked loosely to suckler cows and to do with the type of grass
and grazing because there is a problem, especially in the hill
areas, of having enough suckler cows in particular because they
are replaced by sheep and they don't do the same job. So would
you be open to considering perhaps thinking slightly outside the
box?
Jenna Hegarty:
Is that the Burren project you're thinking of?
Neil Parish: Yes.
Jenna Hegarty:
I think that's a really good example. I think it was previously
a LIFE project but it has now been turned into a national envelope
type approach. I think what's critical with these issues is that
it is about supporting the systems of farming that produce food
and these environmental benefits. I think coupled payments are
an incredibly blunt tool that could risk ticking all of those
boxes in terms of cows being on the hills or coming off the hills
and becoming meat, but might miss everything else and might even
end up with environmental dis-benefits. I think with some not
even particularly in-depth thinking there is a way of capturing
all these benefits and recoupling is not the answer.
Q32 Dan Rogerson:
The communication is a little bit sketchy on the details in Pillar
2 and about how that development can be used. I know that is
an issue that both organisations have raised concerns about.
Do you agree that measures to help farmers to work together on
green infrastructure are needed, and what shape those might take?
Jenna Hegarty:
The issue is how we would interpret green infrastructure as a
kind of landscape-scale approach to a lot of the environmental
challenges that are facing us. You might have heard of the RSPB's
Futurescapes Project, which is effectively looking outside protected
area networks and ways that land managers can work together; having
a big-picture vision for wider countryside using, particularly,
agri-environment schemes. I think taking a landscape-scale approach
through targeted environmental measures is critical, and again
makes me wonder why agri-environment was not pinpointed as one
of the key tools for green infrastructure delivery.
Q33 Dan Rogerson:
Coming back to what we were saying about targeting active farmers
for example, what you are suggesting would presumably potentially
go beyond that because it would be looking at other people in
the landscape as well, so bringing those together.
Jenna Hegarty:
Farmers and land managers, yes.
Q34 Dan Rogerson:
When the Commission talks about preferential aid intensity rates
for improved targeting, what is your understanding of that and
what effects do you think that might have?
Ian Woodhurst:
I think your understanding is probably as much as my understanding.
It's not clear what they are intending to get out of that really
and how it might operate. I think that will be up for negotiation.
That's my way of saying I am afraid I don't really have an answer
to that question because there is not enough information.
Dan Rogerson: It's the
same questions you're asking effectively as organisations?
Ian Woodhurst:
Exactly. What do they want to achieve?
Q35 Dan Rogerson:
In the Uplands inquiry that the Committee's been doing we identified
the problem that the income-forgone payments in agri-environment
schemes aren't really sufficient to make farming in these areas
viable; the sorts of issues that Mr Parish was talking about.
Also, they don't even incentivise better delivery of agri-environment
schemes. What scope do you think there is in CAP reform to effect
that issue?
Ian Woodhurst:
I think the Commission for Rural Communities Report has already
identified the fact that there's additional and currently undervalued
and unrewarded activities that farmers are either doing or could
do in terms of carbon management and water flow management that
would provide ideal opportunities for the CAP to address. It
could then also look at the fact that we would mantain our peatlands,
which are very high in biodiversity and landscape value, as well
as storing carbon. I think we need to maintain the multi-functional
land use approach in particular areas, and the uplands is definitely
one of them.
Q36 Dan Rogerson:
Do you think the view of some of the other Members States would
be interested in that as well, or is that something that we are
talking about here that isn't being talked about in other places
yet?
Ian Woodhurst:
I think it doesn't necessarily have to be upland areas but in
parts of Spain and Romania there are probably the same sorts of
issues, where they are currently looking at marginally economic
areas that will need support to maintain their environmental benefits.
I think that is definitely a role for the CAP.
Gareth Morgan:
We are acutely aware that the income forgone and basis for argi-environment
payments does disadvantage more marginal farming systems because
there is often not a lot of income to forgo unfortunately. This
relates to Mr Parish's question about LFAs; we have tried to introduce
this concept of high nature value farming into the debate. There
are many farmers who are producing environmental services at,
at least the level that they are producing food services for the
market. Trying to identify those farming systems and ensure that
we are targeting the support that is on offer to those farmers,
so that they are maintained to continue their farming in order
that they provide those biodiversity and wider environmental benefits,
could be a way in which we could get around this problem. It
would potentially also enable us to have a simpler support system
for those farmers, because many of them find the paperwork that
surrounds agri-environment quite challenging. For example, in
Romania, there are effectively many peasant farmers who do not
read and write, so going to them with a high-level scheme handbook
is out of the question. We have got to find imaginative new ways
of supporting those farmers who are doing so much for the environment.
Q37 Dan Rogerson:
Certainly during my time as an MP the feedback on the high level
scheme is that it has been improved in this country. It was not
very successful in terms of getting take-up earlier on, but it
has got better now. Should the CAP include measures to increase
consistency in the quality of the implementation of agri-environment
schemes across the Member States, so that we get a similar approach
and we can have confidence that we are achieving results across
Member States?
Ian Woodhurst:
That will come down to the negotiations on the regulations. It
is a tricky balance, is it not? You want to make sure that member
states are applying things consistently, but then you also want
to make sure that you are able to target and pay for the things
you need in each Member State and in each area of each Member
State. It is a difficult balance, but I do not think there would
be any harm in regulations perhaps being a bit more stringent
about the sort of things that the European Commission expects
Member States to produce, which may get round some of the issues
in terms of gold-plating of regulations sometimes.
Gareth Morgan:
Agri-environment is actually a great British success story. It
is something that we should be out there selling in Europe. We
have got a lot to offer. That is why we were so delighted that
the high level scheme was largely spared the spending cuts axe,
because it really benefits things. It does good things for things
like skylarks, cirl buntings and marsh fritillary butterflies
and landscape features too, and we have got evidence that it really
works. We have developed this and I think we have got a good
case to go out to Europe. The European Auditors are about to
produce a report on agrienvironment. I am a bit fearful
because there are some bad examples of agrienvironment out
in Europe, which include states giving out money without checking
that the farmers actually do what they are meant to be doing.
Q38 Tom Blenkinsop:
It is slightly off what we have been talking about as it is about
the timing of this round of CAP reform. Obviously, the UK has
been put in a position where it might have to make policy trade-offs
with other EU Member States in EU CAP reform. What impact do
you think that these possible trade-offs between CAP and other
elements, such as the rebate, might have on CAP reform?
Gareth Morgan:
We saw a suggestion of a leaked conversation about this between
President Sarkozy and David Cameron. There could be a deal about
the UK rebate in exchange for leaving the CAP alone. I suppose
that goes back to my initial point: it would be a shame if this
CAP reform becomes reduced to an issue of political trade-offs
about the budget. There is a real golden opportunity in this
reform to do some great things not just related to the farmed
environment but to enable us to achieve the targets on biodiversity
recovery that we have set ourselves in Nagoya. The farmed environment
will be crucial to that, and it will be incredibly disappointing
if we throw that opportunity away just on the basis that there
was going to be a trade-off between the budget and the CAP.
Ian Woodhurst:
I think there are issues in terms of our funding allocation because
of historic spends on rural development money, for example, which
has resulted in some of the horse-trading that has gone on in
the past with regards to the budget. I think that there wouldn't
be any harm in looking at need, at least in land area terms of
what needs to be done environmentally if we are going to move
to a much more environmentally focused policy. I do think that
we need to avoid horse-trading at the final stages. We need transparency
in the negotiations over the budget to ensure that everyone knows
and is clear about what is trying to be achieved by the reform.
Chair: Thank you very
much indeed. We are most grateful to you, thank you very much
for being here to answer our questions and sharing your thoughts
with us. I am sure we will be in touch again.
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