Memorandum by the Scottish Crofting Foundation
1. OVERVIEW
The objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy
should relate to retaining rural communities, who are actively
involved in sustainable land management and producing high quality
goods for the market. The current design of the CAP does not achieve
this.
With differing implementation across Member
States and individual farmers within member states paid vastly
different amounts for merely maintaining a minimum standard of
husbandry, the policy can scarcely be described as "common".
Likewise, with entitlement to Single Farm Payment being widely
traded in financial markets, it can scarcely be described as "agricultural".
2. REFORMED CAP
AND THE
SINGLE FARM
PAYMENT SCHEME
As expected and widely predicted, the reforms
to the CAP have accelerated the trend of loss of agricultural
activity in more marginal and peripheral areas.
We said in 2004 "Decoupling creates risks
for agriculture in more remote and upland areas and for smaller
agricultural units. It is imperative that a decoupled system of
support payments is combined with measures which properly recognise
the additional costs and difficulties associated with agricultural
activities in least favoured areas and recognise and retain agricultural
systems which contribute to the high environmental value of the
north and west of Scotland".
Now that only maintenance of GAEC is required
in order to access SFP, the disparity between payment levels across
Scotland (varying from £2/Ha in the parish of Kintail to
£639/Ha in the parish of Perth) has slanted the playing field
even more against the interests of peripheral areas and the areas
relatively more disadvantaged by land capability. In these areas,
in spite of small levels of support payment, agricultural enterprises
have continued to make a "go" of it, producing some
very good quality livestock. However, against similar enterprises
now taking place in other parts of the country, but subsidised
to a far greater extent, these hill and upland businesses are
now at a competitive disadvantage.
As we move further from the historic reference
period which defines payment the system becomes less and less
justifiable to the taxpaying public. In order for the CAP to be
able to stand public scrutiny and justify support in the longer
term, it is imperative that the policy is increasingly targeted
at supporting and maintaining multifunctional agriculture, including
High Nature Value farming systems.
Single Farm Payments, being based in Scotland
on historic receipts are very unevenly distributed, with the more
intensive systems in receipt of the largest support payments,
while the more extensive receive less. This system, as would be
expected, currently bears no relation to the delivery of public
goods.
We do not believe that the British public wants
to see and contribute to a countryside dominated by a handful
of large, intensive, industrial units of agricultural production.
Small farming and crofting enterprises and those managing less
productive ground or land in more remote areas provide public
goods in terms of high environmental value, are important for
rural development, for the social economy and for the maintenance
of a culture and a way of life. Future policy should seek to ensure
that the CAP, supports and maintains valuable systems that deliver
numerous public goods in addition to marketable commodities.
11 June 2007
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