Athenry News & Views Winter 2025

Winter 2025

COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY (CAP) Last July the European Commission presented its Proposals for the next CAP which runs from 2028-2034. They are part of the Multiannual Financial Framework (EU Budget). The CAP was launched in 1962. Basically it is a partnership between Agriculture and Society or the EU and its farmers. It had 3 founding aims 1) Guarantee an adequate amount of safe food for the European citizens 2) Provide this food at affordable prices 3) Ensure a fair income for farmers Obviously it has adapted to change and society needs over the decades with, for example, Climate Change, Biodiversity and the environment now playing an important role in any CAP discussions. Despite Food inflation across the EU in recent years and accepting that ‘averages’ can be unfair to those on the wrong side of that average figure but EU citizens in 2024 spent an average of 13-14% of their household income on food. This is slightly less than what they spent on transport. We fare even better in Ireland where last year our spend on food was 9.9% of our average household income which was the second lowest in the EU with only Luxemburg better than us. At the other end of the scale Romania are at 28%. The CAP payments to farmers is a subsidy that allows them to sell their produce at relatively low prices and in some cases even below the cost of production in order for the price to the EU consumer to be kept at affordable levels and more importantly, that there is a constant supply of top quality, safe and traceable food. In essence, every citizen in the EU benefits from the CAP. Unfortunately, the proposals put forward by the EU Commission for the next CAP were ill thought out and inadequate. Despite the asks and demands on farmers in relation to production standards and the environment continuing to increase, the overall CAP budget for 2028-2034 is proposed to be cut by 20%. This follows a downward trend in the percentage of the EU budget going to the CAP over the past 40-50 years eg in 1980 there was 65% of the EU budget going the CAP. That figure has now fallen to 25%. Another measurement has shown that in 1993 the share of EU GDP being set aside for the CAP was 0.69%. Last year it was 0.29%. The proposals on the table will cut those percentages even more. However, they are only proposals and as I said earlier, it is early stages in the first half. Theres a lot of time to go yet and I can see this game definitely going to extra time and penalties.

rules and conditions’. The details on those rules are not yet published. However, it is good news for Ireland Inc. and also for Global emissions given that Irelands dairy farmers are the most Carbon efficient producers of dairy product in the EU. MERCOSUR The Mercosur Trade Deal is a different story and just does not look too positive at this stage. Like any trade deal, it covers a whole range of sectors from cars to cows and wine to water. It is an International Trade Deal between the EU and the 4 Mercosur countries of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uraguay. Initial discussions began over a quarter of a century ago. The main stumbling block has been in relation to agriculture and particularly the concession of access to those countries to export an annual quota of 99,000 metric tons of beef into the EU at a greatly reduced tariff of 7.5%. This flies in the face and smacks of absolute hypocricy from the EU commission and especially its President Ursula Von Der Lyon who on the 5th of December last year flew to Montivideo to sign off on the deal despite the Argentinian Government withdrawing its 3 negotiators from the COP 29 climate talks just 2 weeks previously. We in Ireland have to be open to international trade but we are well within our rights to demand ‘equivalence of production standards’. In early November, IFA and Irish Farmers Journal personel travelled to Brazil and observed a serious lack of identification in the animal herd there and were able to buy medicines and other products – some illegal - over the counter in every store they went into in 4 different provinces. None of those products can be purchased in Ireland or across the EU without a veterinary prescription and in some cases, they are not even available. This is to do with the battle against Anti Microbial Resistance (AMR). Add to this the massive rate of destruction to the Amazon Rain Forest to convert it into livestock farming in Brazil. One study estimates that 55 million hectares has been destroyed in the 2 decades between 2000-2020. To put this figure into perspective, there is just shy of 7 million hectares of land in total in Ireland. The Amazon Rain Forest is nicknamed the ‘Lungs of the Earth’. We are expected to accept a deal with those who are destroying an amount of it equivalent to 8 times the size of Ireland over a 20 year period and prior to 2000, had destroyed a further 130 m hectares between 1973-2000. In any deal, the playing field must be level for both parties. This is not the case with Mercosur