Worries as set-aside poised to return under EU reform plan

Subsidies under the existing arrangements of the Common Agricultural Policy are worth about £50m a year to growers and the wider rural economy in the East Riding, where 90 per cent of the land is farmed and 70 per cent is cultivated. But plans to replace the single farm payment with a Basic Payment Scheme – which would still be linked to hectares owned but would limit the maximum sum farmers could claim – risk radically altering farming practices and could have “potentially serious” implications for East Yorkshire, a report has warned.

To comply with the new payments regime, farmers would have to fulfil certain “greening” criteria, including crop diversification, maintaining permanent grassland and dedicating at least seven per cent of land to an “ecological focus area”.

However, a proposed East Riding Council response to a consultation on the reforms, which will go before the authority’s cabinet today, raises a number of concerns.

The report said: “Linking a ‘greening’ requirement to the income support could have unintended consequences for intensive arable farmers who would be obliged to set land aside in order to comply, and this in a time of concerns over food security.

“It is likely that a compulsory ‘greening’ element will act as a disincentive for farmers to engage in more targeted, and effective habitat and ecosystem management.”

It adds: “Major concerns surround excluding permanent grassland from the seven per cent ecological focus area. On this basis the chalk grasslands of the Wolds would be excluded. Meanwhile, farmers will be tempted to plough up more ordinary (but precious in the East Riding owing to its scarcity value) permanent pasture before these new proposals are introduced to maximise their management flexibility post-2013.”

The changes were due to come into effect in 2013, but are now expected to be delayed by a year. However, farming industry leaders have already raised their concern over the plans.

Grave fears have been expressed internationally about global demand for a sustainable supply of food. There are intense challenges to produce and supply enough safe and nutritious food for a growing global population, which is projected to reach nine billion by 2050.

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) admitted that it shares the concerns of East Riding Council over the potential consequences of so-called “greening” measures.

A spokesman for the NFU said: “We are also concerned that the measures represent a missed opportunity to simplify the CAP, to make it more market orientated and to help farmers become more competitive.”

The NFU also claimed that the requirement for farmers to devote at least seven per cent of their land to ecological focus areas is “excessive and misguided” – especially when it is widely accepted that agricultural production must increase to meet growing global demand.

The spokesman added: “The percentage to be set-aside must be reduced and focused on non-productive areas as well as features such as hedges, field margins and conservation headlands, areas of farm woodland, ponds and streams.

“The issue of permanent pasture is another thorny one. In our view the commission’s proposals would ‘fossilise’ land defined as permanent pasture – especially worrying when the definition of permanent pasture does not differentiate between uncultivated land and improved or managed land.

“We believe this approach is totally unacceptable and that farmers must be able to improve their managed grassland and make sustainable economic decisions.”