EUROPEAN Commission proposals for allowing member states discretion in the delivery of support to agriculture have been condemned by National Farmers' Union of Scotland's hill-farming convener John Scott as ''an admission that they cannot make the single market work''.
The proposed move towards ''national envelopes'' in Agenda 2000 would destroy the concept of the single market, he told a meeting of the union's Ayr area executive.
The re-introduction of a national element, giving individual governments discretion on how they choose to allocate up to 30% of support in specific sectors, could lead to more picketing of ports, he warned.
''Farmers will feel let down by their government if they think another sector has been allowed to benefit at their expense. It will be a recipe for disenchantment and disharmony.''
NFUS commodity director Scott Walker said there was concern that the regulation covering national envelopes was discretionary rather than compulsory.
There was a possibility that under the terms of the Fontainebleau Agreement, the Government might conclude it could save money for the Treasury by opting not to take up the national envelope. That would increase the rebate which could be claimed on payments to Europe.
The proposed amendments to the Common Agricultural Policy would also introduce an opportunity for some payments to be switched from a headage basis (per animal) to an area basis (per acre). Such a move, suggested area president Henry Murdoch, could turn farmers into glorified park-keepers.
''Area payments are what you would move to if you want to take the moral high ground in the next round of WTO talks, because they are de-coupled from production,'' said Walker.
On the face of it, Scottish farms could benefit from this because they have less animals per business than in England and Wales. However, England would doubtless put up every possible argument to prevent more money being transferred to Scotland.
The best strategy, he said, would be to fight for 100% compensation each step of the way as the EU moved towards world prices. During that process support payments should still be linked to animals.
''Once we have moved to world prices it doesn't make sense to put restrictions on farmers. At that stage I believe we should move to area payments.''
John Scott pointed out, however, that headage payments made it possible to manage the market more efficiently, with statistics on how many animals were coming through the system.
Area secretary Howard Jefferson called on farmers to rally behind the union in the present crisis: ''If we don't have the NFUS to negotiate us through Agenda 2000, we won't have an industry at all. Anyone who is talking about not renewing his subscription should think about it very carefully.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article