Significant further changes to the Common Agricultural Policy (Cap) are not envisaged in the near future, the European Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told the Dáil today.
Speaking at a day of debate reserved exclusively for European matters, Ms Fischer Boel warned however, that the liberalisation of global trade would increase pressure on Ireland's key beef and dairy sectors.
Her advice to Irish farmers to meet the challenge was to "keep doing what you are doing". "The lower cost producers have some advantages but they do not hold all the cards," she said.
Ireland's high production standards and practices were an advantage in exploiting evolving market demand, she said.
"Consumers are looking for higher quality and are becoming aware of the links between food and the environment, animal welfare and safety".
Ms Fischer Boel said farmers should also diversify and said there were particular opportunities in biofuels. The "enterprise and imagination" that led to the Celtic Tiger would serve Irish agriculture well, she said.
"In the right policy environment, Irish farmers will be able to hold their heads high."
The Cap was under continuing review but sectors less important in Ireland such as wine and fruit were under particular scrutiny, she said. Although what Ms Fischer Boel called a "health check", was being carried out on agreed reforms.
She did not envisaged further significant changes before the culmination of the review in 2003 and 2004.
"I want to give farmers in Ireland and the rest of the EU as much stability as possible. No economic sector can work profitably and sustainably if the policy framework is in a constant state of revolution."
Speaking after the Commissioner's address to the Dail, Minster for Agriculture Mary Coughlan said she also believed there would be little change to the CAP before 2014.
Ms Fischer Boel then took questions from deputies where issues such as the controversial nitrates directive and food safety and the security of food supply.
Ms Ficher Boel said the nitrates directive was a "responsible" solution to the problem of water pollution.