Guest blog on CAP reform from Secretary of State, Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP

Today, I am pleased to be able to host a guest blog from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP.  Here she outlines the UK Government's ambitions for reform of the Common Agriculture Policy.  There is still a long way to go in these negotiations but agreement is due to be reached in 2013.  However, I thought it would be good to hear more about the UK's ambitions now.  Have a read and let me know what you think.  I will post our response later in the week.

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If ten million birds in the UK suddenly disappeared there would be a national outcry, and a call to action to make sure it never happened again. People would quite rightly regard it as an ecological disaster.

But take a look at what has been happening in Europe over the past 30 years. It is estimated that each year 10 million farmland birds simply disappear in Europe – that’s roughly the equivalent to the loss of one bird every three seconds or 1,141 every hour.

Successive Common Agricultural Policy regimes have sadly contributed hugely to these losses. Recent regimes have directly linked payments to production, forcing farmers to intensify, change cropping patterns, take out hedgerows and change landscapes.

Farmland bird statistics are an excellent indicator for the general health of wildlife in the farmed environment and we need to reverse this trend through a reformed CAP.

At present, the substantial majority of CAP funding goes to support direct payments to farmers (Pillar 1), with a much smaller pot going to fund Rural Development (Pillar 2), which includes nature-friendly schemes, such as our Environmental Stewardship schemes.

I do not believe the Commission’s current proposals to green Pillar 1 will deliver significant environmental benefits. They will also increase red-tape for farmers.

Instead, I would like to see a larger share of the budget going into Rural Development and at least 25 per cent of that budget dedicated to environmental measures. We need to have a system that reduces administrative burdens, secures practical, effective and simple provisions for farmers and one that boosts our wildlife, landscapes and local communities.

In February, the EU Agriculture Commissioner said he saw British farmers as ‘environmental champions’ – and we are celebrating this year the  25^th anniversary of our first agri-environment schemes. Nearly 70 per cent of all our farmland in England is now covered by the schemes, which are supported by 55,000 farmers. The majority of our farmers are already ahead of the game and I want to see this valuable work recognised in any greening proposals.

Even so, we are always looking to do more and lead by example, which is why we recently announced that from January next year we are making changes to Entry Level Stewardship which will mean more winter/spring food for farmland birds, higher quality grassland, more hedgerows restored and new options to improve biodiversity on arable farmland.

I would like to thank the RSPB’s  work with farmers on specific farmland bird projects. You have made a huge contribution to helping restore species that were on the verge of extinction, such as the cirl bunting and stone curlew.

My vision for the new CAP is for a system that increasingly supports the delivery of environmental protection. It must enhance our water quality, improve our wildlife and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as help farmers to produce more food, sustainably. This can be achieved by the CAP encouraging innovation and competitiveness in the farming industry.

We need to get this balance between high quality sustainable food production and environmental protection right – for the sake of our children and the generations to come.