WHILE NEARLY 44,000 Irish farmers applied for their EU farm grant online this year, only three farmers have made submissions to the European Commission on the future of the Common Agriculture Policy (Cap).
In all there have only been eight submissions from Ireland so far to the invitation to the public from agriculture commissioner, Dacian Ciolos, to contribute to the debate on the upcoming reform.
The invitation, issued on April 12th last, asked for views on why Common Agricultural Policy is needed, what is expected from it, why it should be reformed and what tools are needed for tomorrow’s Cap.
The Cap is the EU’s system of agriculture subsidies and programmes which controls output and agricultural supports.
It is one of the cornerstones of the EU as it was set up to deliver food security and currently represents 48 per cent of the EU’s budget at nearly €50 billion.
The Cap is to be totally reformed over the next few years and a blueprint on its future shape post 2013, prepared by the European Commission, is due in November this year.
The public have until June 3rd to join in the debate and the submissions will be evaluated by an external company which will present a report in time for a conference in Brussels on July 19th or 20th.
While there has been substantial responses from France and Germany and there have been 1,000 submissions so far, there have been only eight submissions from Ireland.
The Irish submissions, which can be viewed online, showed only three of them are from people describing themselves as farmers, two are from journalists, one from Trinity College and one from “a citizen” and only one woman responded.
There are no submissions so far from any of the farm organisations, from agriculture businesses, environmental groups or wildlife or animal welfare organisations.
By last weekend, Germany had 275 submissions, France 229 and there were 100 from Spain.
An Irish Farmers’ Association spokesman said it had already made a detailed submission to the Department of Agriculture on the future of the Cap but it would be making a submission to the public debate before it closes.
The lack of response to the public debate is in sharp contrast with the number of farmers who applied online this year for the EU Single Farm Payment, which was worth over €1.4 billion to them.
Last week e Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith said when the application date closed, there had been more than 43,500 online applications from Irish farmers.
He said this represented a 26 per cent increase in the usage of new technology and he welcomed this increase.
The commission said there had been no submissions at all from Cyprus or Slovakia, but this might be explained by a small delay in the registration of figures.
To participate in the debate – or to view the contributions – go to http://ec.europa.eu/cap-debate