Article on Latest on CAP Reform

Poor Farmer in the hills · 03-03-2013 01:18AM

bbam you forget the basic fact that the CAP was put in place to provide cheap food for the people of Europe.When you have the meat processors and the multiples screwing farmers farming is never going to be profitable. Funding the CAP is the preferred option of the political powers in Europe to provide a stable supply of food. They will never want a straightforward system of supply and demand determining farm gate prices as it would be too unregulated and would cause massive political unrest in the event of food shortages.The family farm is also something well worth protecting and i for one do not want to see the number of farms decimated and rural depopulation. I love living on a farm in the country as long as i can earn enough to survive by farming and whatever else i can find to do.

freedominacup · 03-03-2013 10:27AM

Poor Farmer in the hills wrote: »

bbam you forget the basic fact that the CAP was put in place to provide cheap food for the people of Europe.When you have the meat processors and the multiples screwing farmers farming is never going to be profitable. Funding the CAP is the preferred option of the political powers in Europe to provide a stable supply of food. They will never want a straightforward system of supply and demand determining farm gate prices as it would be too unregulated and would cause massive political unrest in the event of food shortages.The family farm is also something well worth protecting and i for one do not want to see the number of farms decimated and rural depopulation. I love living on a farm in the country as long as i can earn enough to survive by farming and whatever else i can find to do.

Yep farm policy as social engineering. If you want people living in the countryside then pay them for that. Don't dress it up as some sort of agriculture policy and drag the rest of us into the mess that the SFP causes.

Figerty · 03-03-2013 08:46PM

bbam wrote: »

Roll on that day....
Then we'll have a more level playing field.. Those who have been striving towards an actual profitable model will remain and those who are blindly farming away but being kept afloat by the bloated SFP based on a decade old information will be forced to shape up or ship out..

Really.. Irish farmers talk more about their SFP than they do about profit/costs/margins or any of the financial topics that they should be focusing on..

Its plane to see through the tone of this thread that the sense of entitlement to huge chunks of money from another tax payers pocket is embarrassing..
"I deserve it because daddy worked hard during the reference years"
"I deserve it because I have a great big farm of good land"
"I deserve it because I have a farm in the west"
"I deserve it........ insert what ever moan/boast you feel like

Any non farming person finding themselves on this thread would just have the whole notion that farmers are more interested in money handouts than farming efficiently confirmed for them..

The sooner the SFP is gone the better for Irish farming, a few tough years and then whoever comes out the other side will be better off..

This is some taxpayers money we seem to think we have an entitlement to !

You have it right on the I deserve bit, and this is exactly what politics thrives on. Which is why the solution offered will be a fudge.

rancher · 04-03-2013 07:39AM

Figerty wrote: »

You have it right on the I deserve bit, and this is exactly what politics thrives on. Which is why the solution offered will be a fudge.

Was in Dublin yesterday, as you probably know Coveney is supporting a minimum payment, Commisioner Ciolos has proposed €196/ha......to finance this the high SFP farmers will take a huge hit on their payments, IFA economist projected that it will go something on these lines. €300/ha will lose10%, €450/ha will lose 20%, €600/ha will lose 30%, €800 will lose 42%,.. all by 2019. I always reckoned it was going to be hard to change Ciolos's mind.
Justin Mc Carthy was at the meeting so you will get all the details in the Journal

reilig · 04-03-2013 10:50AM

rancher wrote: »

Was in Dublin yesterday, as you probably know Coveney is supporting a minimum payment, Commisioner Ciolos has proposed €196/ha......to finance this the high SFP farmers will take a huge hit on their payments, IFA economist projected that it will go something on these lines. €300/ha will lose10%, €450/ha will lose 20%, €600/ha will lose 30%, €800 will lose 42%,.. all by 2019. I always reckoned it was going to be hard to change Ciolos's mind.
Justin Mc Carthy was at the meeting so you will get all the details in the Journal

It that €196 a total rate. I thought there were greening payments to go on top of that?

rancher · 04-03-2013 11:16AM

reilig wrote: »

It that €196 a total rate. I thought there were greening payments to go on top of that?

Journal will probably have all the detail, as you can imagine, it wasn't the minimum payment that I was concerned about......anyway it's not near finalised yet,

bob charles · 04-03-2013 12:01PM

rancher wrote: »

Was in Dublin yesterday, as you probably know Coveney is supporting a minimum payment, Commisioner Ciolos has proposed €196/ha......to finance this the high SFP farmers will take a huge hit on their payments, IFA economist projected that it will go something on these lines. €300/ha will lose10%, €450/ha will lose 20%, €600/ha will lose 30%, €800 will lose 42%,.. all by 2019. I always reckoned it was going to be hard to change Ciolos's mind.
Justin Mc Carthy was at the meeting so you will get all the details in the Journal

So is there still going to be some type of historical model? if you say that a €600/ha farmer will lose 30% so they will come out around €400 an acre. What will make up the balance between the min €196 and the extra €200 that is the difference?

reilig · 04-03-2013 01:06PM

bob charles wrote: »

So is there still going to be some type of historical model? if you say that a €600/ha farmer will lose 30% so they will come out around €400 an acre. What will make up the balance between the min €196 and the extra €200 that is the difference?

HillFarmer · 04-03-2013 01:21PM

rancher wrote: »

Journal will probably have all the detail, as you can imagine, it wasn't the minimum payment that I was concerned about......anyway it's not near finalised yet,

Does anyone know when it will be finalised, or when the next discussions take place?

rancher · 04-03-2013 02:43PM

HillFarmer wrote: »

Does anyone know when it will be finalised, or when the next discussions take place?

Ireland have the EU presidency till the end of June and they're hoping to have major progress before then, in fact there's some serious meetings this month

blue5000 · 04-03-2013 02:53PM

Looks like payments could be capped, anyone hear simple simon on rte 1 this morning? Typical politician loads of talk, but at the same time saying nothing concrete.

reilig · 04-03-2013 03:10PM

blue5000 wrote: »

Looks like payments could be capped, anyone hear simple simon on rte 1 this morning? Typical politician loads of talk, but at the same time saying nothing concrete.

It's like the annual budget. They'll hint at loads of stuff to gauge people's reactions and then they will roll out a complicated divvy out scheme which takes a bit of everything and really isn't a whole lot different.

bob charles · 04-03-2013 03:11PM

It will be a complicated system so as to keep as many uncivil servants as possible pen pushing. How much of the CAP is wasted in administration? 50% ?

Conmaicne Mara · 04-03-2013 06:37PM

bbam wrote: »

the sense of entitlement

Might have been a bad idea to call them "entitlements"

I see Min has closed his account

mf240 · 04-03-2013 09:47PM

God help the poor farmers in the east on top quality land if this goes through, trocaire are talking of setting up an office there to cope with the fall out.

rancher · 05-03-2013 07:22AM

mf240 wrote: »

God help the poor farmers in the east on top quality land if this goes through, trocaire are talking of setting up an office there to cope with the fall out.

There's a lot of good farmers in the west of Ireland too that mightn't have a big SFP, but, because they farm well, have a high rate per ha and these guys will be badly affected, on average the farms in the east would be a lot bigger and would have more options

tabby aspreme · 05-03-2013 09:20AM

Spokesperson for UFA on morning Ireland, he is not happy with Simon Coveney spending so much time with John Bryan, he said 2500 farmers with biggest sfp share 150 million , while 125 million is shared by 52000 of the lowest paid farmers

freedominacup · 05-03-2013 10:12AM

tabby aspreme wrote: »

Spokesperson for UFA on morning Ireland, he is not happy with Simon Coveney spending so much time with John Bryan, he said 2500 farmers with biggest sfp share 150 million , while 125 million is shared by 52000 of the lowest paid farmers

Quick sum.
Cut the 2500 back to the proposed €50k cap and give all of the savings to the 52000 lowest paid and they will get an extra €480 each. I don't see this having a dramatic effect on that 52000, I maybe wrong.

The only solution is a flat rate of around €760/acre on the first 15 acres and no further payments of any kind on any animal or any acre after that. If any farmer stops farming his payment is forfeit to the national budget for distribution to new entrants or if there are no new entrants everybody elses payment goes up by a tiny fraction. However qualifying new entrants would automatically be entitled to an equal share of the pie. That's the fair and simple solution.

p.s. the 55,000 odd guys in the middle have an average payment of €20.5k what size lump would you be proposing to take from them on average if you don't adopt my system?

rancher · 05-03-2013 11:14AM

[QUOTE=freedominacup;83510391

p.s. the 55,000 odd guys in the middle have an average payment of €20.5k what size lump would you be proposing to take from them on average if you don't adopt my system?[/QUOTE]

If those lobbying to take it off the high SFP farmer get their way and he's getting €500/ha on 40ha, he'd lose 100/ha or €4000 or if he was getting €250/ha on 80ha, he'd lose nothing

freedominacup · 05-03-2013 11:23AM

rancher wrote: »

If those lobbying to take it off the high SFP farmer get their way and he's getting €500/ha on 40ha, he'd lose 100/ha or €4000 or if he was getting €250/ha on 80ha, he'd lose nothing

That's really fair:rolleyes:. The guy with the 40ha of course really doesn't need the payment at all his neighbour with twice the acreage is in a bad way for more though.

rancher · 05-03-2013 11:39AM

freedominacup wrote: »

That's really fair:rolleyes:. The guy with the 40ha of course really doesn't need the payment at all his neighbour with twice the acreage is in a bad way for more though.

That's why I quoted that example and I pointed out that earlier today about the low SFP farmers who farm very well and have a high rate per ha.
On your earlier proposal ie €760/ha ......I have some neighbours here with great jobs and farming around the 15 acres, one gets €1500 and the other gets €1800( I know this because I help them with the forms) . Are you going to give these €10000.
ps. They are also in DAS.
Frontloading the payments will also benefit these farmers and there's a lot of them about
If you were at the Coveney information meetings you would have heard him say the farmers who were productive in 2000 are still productive and that was based on census, cmms, etc and that will change, cattle finishers will either pay less for their cattle or not buy them at all........be careful of what you wish for

RobertKK · 05-03-2013 01:50PM

Do farmers really need €50k in payments per year, I mean it is like a government salary, and the lies of the John Bryan who makes out the current SFP is linked to production, maybe in the past, but when it came in, it was not.

Will the IFA please explain how many cattle or sheep I need to have on my farm to get the SFP given it is supposedly linked to production. Simon Coveney and anyone with a brain can see the myths of this production argument.

RobertKK · 05-03-2013 01:58PM

rancher wrote: »

That's why I quoted that example and I pointed out that earlier today about the low SFP farmers who farm very well and have a high rate per ha.
On your earlier proposal ie €760/ha ......I have some neighbours here with great jobs and farming around the 15 acres, one gets €1500 and the other gets €1800( I know this because I help them with the forms) . Are you going to give these €10000.
ps. They are also in DAS.
Frontloading the payments will also benefit these farmers and there's a lot of them about
If you were at the Coveney information meetings you would have heard him say the farmers who were productive in 2000 are still productive and that was based on census, cmms, etc and that will change, cattle finishers will either pay less for their cattle or not buy them at all........be careful of what you wish for

Today's Farming Independent says €400/ha for the first 20 hectares, so the 15 acres under this system would get €2,428 plus about €577 in DAS. I don't know where the €10k comes from.

If cattle farming is not profitable then the problem is the cattle farming and that particular farmer. The reform of the SFP/CAP should not be about protecting those who are not able to operate at a profit under an equitable system with the new CAP.

reilig · 05-03-2013 02:15PM

RobertKK wrote: »

Do farmers really need €50k in payments per year, I mean it is like a government salary, and the lies of the John Bryan who makes out the current SFP is linked to production, maybe in the past, but when it came in, it was not.

Will the IFA please explain how many cattle or sheep I need to have on my farm to get the SFP given it is supposedly linked to production. Simon Coveney and anyone with a brain can see the myths of this production argument.

The argument is that if a farm is receiving a €50k payment, then it is using some of this payment to finance the farm - be it to pay wages or invest in animals at a higher price than the would be able to pay if they hadn't the payment.

The example that Rancher is giving above is about Finishers who buy their animals from weinling producers. They use their SFP to invest into these animals and are therefore able to pay better prices to the weinling producers. If their SFP is cut, then they will not be able to pay as much for animals as they have been in the past.

Some of the debate centres around "armchair farmers". They built up quite large Single farm Payments for the last round of payments and then claimed this money while cutting back on their farming activities to a much lower level. Basically they got paid money for the level of production that they once had, not the level of production that the were currently at. ie. Money for being cute hoors, not farming. There were many farmers who managed to inflate their SFP by keeping extra stock for the reference years and who then cut down on stock to a more manageable level. Some of these farmers want to see their payments maintained at the artifically high level that it was in the past and don't want to see the money shared out among new farm entrants or farmers who have very low levels of SFP.

Capping SFP is one way of ensuring that the scheme can't be unfairly "milked". In the past, a number of meat factories who owned small farms were able to generate SFP in excess of €500,000 by passing animals through their herd before slaughter and claiming Slaughter premium on them which counted towards SFP. Capping SFP would cut much of this out.
However, capping SFP could mean for a small number of large farmers that their income is desolated. These farms may be very productive and well deserving of a large SFP.

The weight on Coveney's is caused by having to try to come up with a scheme of dividing the CAP payment which does not reward armchair farmers, but rewards farmers that are working hard - however, it cannot be based on levels of production on farms - which makes any scheme that he proposes open to criticism from all sides.

reilig · 05-03-2013 02:19PM

RobertKK wrote: »

The reform of the SFP/CAP should not be about protecting those who are not able to operate at a profit under an equitable system with the new CAP.

What the hell is it for then???????

It's to reward and protect farms that are not making a profit or making a small profit. It is to compensate for food being sold at below the cost of production which leads to loss making on farms. It's paid to maintain food security and price stability in Europe by rewarding farmers who produce cheap food for Europe's population.

If every farmer was capable of making a profit by selling the food that they produce there would be no need for CAP at all!

freedominacup · 05-03-2013 02:23PM

rancher wrote: »

On your earlier proposal ie €760/ha ......I have some neighbours here with great jobs and farming around the 15 acres, one gets €1500 and the other gets €1800( I know this because I help them with the forms) . Are you going to give these €10000.
ps. They are also in DAS.

No I'm saying give them €11.5k same as every other farmer and let the chips fall where they may. No extra payments for any acre or beast end of. Very simple. There's lots of guys on this thread want a more equitable (read suits me better) distribution of the SFP. I'm just saying let's make it absolutely equal for everybody because anything else is designed to suit a certain group.

rancher · 05-03-2013 02:23PM

RobertKK wrote: »

Today's Farming Independent says €400/ha for the first 20 hectares, so the 15 acres under this system would get €2,428 plus about €577 in DAS. I don't know where the €10k comes from.

If cattle farming is not profitable then the problem is the cattle farming and that particular farmer. The reform of the SFP/CAP should not be about protecting those who are not able to operate at a profit under an equitable system with the new CAP.

Freedominacup was proposing €760 acre on first 15 acres which would definitely get to nonfarmers hence the €10000

Conmaicne Mara · 05-03-2013 02:29PM

freedominacup wrote: »

No I'm saying give them €11.5k same as every other farmer and let the chips fall where they may. No extra payments for any acre or beast end of. Very simple. There's lots of guys on this thread want a more equitable (read suits me better) distribution of the SFP. I'm just saying let's make it absolutely equal for everybody because anything else is designed to suit a certain group.

That would be everyone who's put forward a view on it, not "a lot of guys". Them that have it want to keep it, them that don't have it want a share of it.

freedominacup · 05-03-2013 02:32PM

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

That would be everyone who's put forward a view on it, not "a lot of guys". Them that have it want to keep it, them that don't have it want a share of it.

See post 109 for a couple of figures on your redistribution ideas.

rancher · 05-03-2013 02:32PM

RobertKK wrote: »

Do farmers really need €50k in payments per year, I mean it is like a government salary, and the lies of the John Bryan who makes out the current SFP is linked to production, maybe in the past, but when it came in, it was not.

Will the IFA please explain how many cattle or sheep I need to have on my farm to get the SFP given it is supposedly linked to production. Simon Coveney and anyone with a brain can see the myths of this production argument.

Thats the subsidy they reckoned we needed to produce beef/lamb in the nineties and I don't think the margins in producing beef/lamb have improved since.
I can understand the feelings of young farmers trying to get entitlements..... but what I can't understand is farmers my age whingeing when they had the opportunity to maximise their premiums same as I had.

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