The comments about food and farming in an EU context from EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen yesterday have to be welcomed.

She said: “There is hardly a more important sector, that is vital to health.” The report published yesterday is a first peep at the direction of travel of agricultural policy post-2027.

Will this signal a real change that the €300 billion CAP support will move back towards food and productive farming rather than to environmental measures? President von der Leyen’s comments that “in parallel (to the €300 billion CAP) we must look at the agri food value chain, and too often farmers are weak sellers and forced to systematically sell below cost” are strong words.

More importantly the comments that the CAP funds must be more targeted to the farmers “who need it most” could signal a move away from the current system of area based payments.

President von der Leyen said the recommendations in this report will feed into the roadmap within the first 100 days of the next Commission. She reiterated none of this is a move away from nature and the environment, but a rebalancing of rewards and incentives.

Exactly what that rebalancing is, we don’t know. We need more detail and decisions. However, there is definitely a move towards a more balanced approach.

Notable

The temporary ‘Just Transition Fund’ and a ‘well-resourced nature restoration fund’ that are funded outside of the CAP budget are notable to say the least.

It will be important to see the numbers behind both of these and how Irish farmers can benefit. One EU reporter asked yesterday if it is a continuation of reduced climate rules on farmers. Von der Leyen denied this, saying that we need a better way of getting to climate neutrality than protests and disgruntled farmers.

This 80 page report emerged as the final output from the strategic dialogue on the future of EU agriculture with over 100 meetings of EU representative groups from Greenpeace to Copa Cogeca.

All have signed up to it. Time will tell of the significance of this report, however, for now all we can do is listen and trust those EU leaders engaged in talks.

They have said they want to put more trust in farmers and bring better incentives rather than micro-controlling smaller farmers.

Closer to home, and not for the first time, the chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) Marie Donnelly came out yesterday suggesting the signals to de-carbonise and incentives to farmers are not strong enough.

She’s right to a point. However, I’m not sure this type of blame game gets us very far. For one, many of our agri businesses are co-op owned, so farmers should be in control.

Secondly, is the market really delivering the incentives for this younger beef or greener milk? Organic is certainly not and we have many global examples of failure in this space.

Yet the CCAC sees this as a shining light. It may well be reducing emissions, but it can financially break businesses and farmers along the way.

Investments

Carbery in west Cork held a farm open day on Shinagh Farm on Wednesday, and all the way around the stands we heard of investments the farmer can make. Everything from lime, clover, multispecies, low emission spreaders to feed additives costing maybe €80 per cow per year.

Yes, some of these make money for the farmer or replace existing costs, but in many cases it’s an additional cost. We need a more widely held discussion rather than a blame game.

When a farmer reduces emissions, the whole supply chain de-carbonises – the processor, the wholesaler, and the retailer.

Collaboration is vital and if it’s not hard cash, then farmers deserve some form of reward – whether that’s carbon credits or otherwise. This for me is the key to taking on these incentives or indeed changing farm structures or enterprises.