Farm subsidies need to be better targeted so that more money goes to younger farmers starting off in the industry, European commissioner for agriculture Christophe Hansen has said.
There would have to be a “rebalancing” of how payments were made to farmers under the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) given the bloc’s agriculture budget was likely to come under pressure, Mr Hansen said.
Changes to the CAP payments, a crucial source of income for thousands of small farmers in Ireland, should take into account the difference between farmers with five hectares and those with 5,000, he said.
Mr Hansen said there was uncertainty around the make-up of the EU’s next budget.
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“There needs to be a certain rebalancing, especially since we are not sure about the exact size of the next [EU budget] and the structure of it, also the amount available for agriculture,” he said.
Lengthy negotiations are due to start later this year to agree a new multiyear budget, which would run from 2028. There is expected to be a push to earmark significantly more money to spend on defence and financing to create a “competitiveness fund” to boost the EU economy.
The amount allocated in the budget for CAP subsidies and development funding for poorer member states and regions could come under pressure as a result.
“The money is of course limited,” Mr Hansen said. “Who are the people and the farmers that are most in need? I think we need to target better. We can’t compare a farm with five hectares with a farm of 5,000 hectares, I think that is very clear.”
The EU needed to channel more funding “to those farmers and companies that are most in need” and this included young farmers starting off in the sector, he added.
“This is a problem [in Ireland as well], where young people don’t have the means to start ... That is very important that we channel more support,” he said, adding that this extra funding would have to be “taken from somewhere”.
Speaking in Brussels ahead of a new EU agriculture and food policy being announced on Wednesday, Mr Hansen, a centre-right politician from Luxembourg, said the union was facing a lot of demands to do more and address “new priorities”. He added that this would ideally come with “additional financing”.
The European Commission, the EU executive that proposes laws and regulations, was committed to cutting down the current administrative and paperwork burden facing farmers when it come to CAP, he said.
The controversial Mercosur trade deal - struck by the EU with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay - should not be viewed in “black and white” terms, he said.
Farmers and the meat processing industry have warned the free trade deal would potentially flood the European market with cheap South American beef, undercutting Irish farmers and producers.
EU states still have to approve the deal in a vote, with Paris and a number of other capitals looking to pull together enough support to kill the agreement.
[ Mercosur will not be the cataclysm for Irish farmers they predictOpens in new window ]
Mr Hansen said farmers had concerns about the proposed deal and noted there were “more sensitive” sectors, like the beef industry. However, he said the agreement would open up opportunities for other sectors to increase the amount they exported.
When it came to land, the commissioner said EU regulations on needed to make sense to those on the ground given no territory in the bloc is comparable to the next.
“Therefore we need to have tailor made approaches, not one size fits all,” he said.
