It’s a big week for agriculture – and wildlife – as the European Commission readies itself to unveil its proposals for a reformed Common Agricultural Policy. Whether you are a farmer, an environmentalist, a Defra minister or even if you are a turtle dove - you probably should be paying attention.
Ask most people about the CAP and they will tell you dramatic stories about butter mountains and wine lakes – possibly with some tangerine trees and marmalade skies thrown in for good measure. But in recent years this influential, and massively well funded, policy has not featured much in the public consciousness and am sure that for many people, their eyes glaze over at the very mention of the CAP.
But, the CAP directs over €50billion of taxpayers’ money a year – that’s over a third of the total EU budget. On Wednesday EU ministers will finally unveil their proposals for what the next CAP – which comes into force in 2014 – will look like.
Unfortunately all the signs are that it will fail our countryside wildlife. Various leaks, announcements and rumours over recent months suggest that the policy will put the brakes on support for agri environment stewardship – the measures farmers put in place to help reverse farmland wildlife declines - in fact the policy may even go into reverse. This would be bad news for farmers who want to do more to help wildlife and bad news for species such as skylark, corn bunting and yes, turtle dove. It would also be very bad news for Defra Ministers - their business model for recovery nature is based on well funded and well designed agri-environment schemes.
We (including Defra Ministers) can’t just shrug our shoulders and hope for a better settlement next time – it won’t be renegotiated until 2020. Coincidentally that is the date that the EU and UK governments have set themselves to halt biodiversity declines. We missed the 2010 target, we cannot afford to miss it again in 2020.
We have real concerns that unless the newly reformed CAP directs more taxpayers’ money towards those wildlife friendly measures that bring the life back into our countryside but don’t spin a financial profit, it will be a disaster for nature and for many farmers who have changed their farming business to access these schemes.
Defra ministers are saying some very positive things in this area and have shown how much they value agri environment measures in the UK – but elsewhere in Europe they don’t seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet.
This isn’t the end – in fact this is just the beginning. After this week these proposals will then be hotly debated by members states and MEPs who need to approve them before they come into force in two years’ time.
We'll do our bit, of course. We'll be getting our members involved, will be encouraging farmers to step up and will also be making the case that the UK Government (especially the Prime Minister and Chancellor) must fight for the quality of EU spend.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on what happens on Wednesday and we’ll judge the proposals when they are unveiled - but I can’t help feeling we will have a long hard fight on our hands.