If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

There is plenty wrong with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), although everybody will disagree on exactly what the core problems are.

Farmers will say there isn’t enough funding for the level of ambition, environmental activists hold that there isn’t enough ambition considering the level of funding.

Farmers will also argue that the amount of form-filling and red tape is an unnecessary burden, although others would retort that it’s an artificial support mechanism for food production, which should be left to market forces.

What I’ve never heard anyone say is that the dedicated and ring-fenced budget is a problem and that the CAP would benefit from its funding being bundled into a larger entity.

No-one has ever claimed that presenting a CAP budget that is inherently confusing gives clarity.

Let there be no doubt, the single budget is a fudge - and a deliberate one.

It blurs the lines around the amount of money being dedicated to one of the EU’s signal achievements, the CAP. To highlight this, we need to look at a few figures first.

Direct payments

The CAP budget for the seven-year period 2021-2027 was €386.6bn. Of that, €291.1bn was from the European Agriculture Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and was for direct payments.

The remaining €95.5bn came from the European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). This effectively is the pillar two fund, which can be augmented by national government co-funding of measures.

The last CAP reform allowed for a limited amount of moving of money between the two CAP pillars, but overall funding was clearly understandable, transparent and targeted.

This time around, the proposal from European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is for CAP to be part of a larger “national and regional partnership plans”.

For the seven years 2028-2034, the budget here is €865bn. On the face of it, this looks like an increased budget over the current budget.

The 2021-2027 cohesion fund is €391bn. When it and CAP are added, we get a total of €778.6bn. At surface level, it looks like the overall proposed fund of €865bn is an increase of about 11%. So happy days, right?

Not really. All we can be certain of is that €300bn is being ringfenced for farming payments. This is a small increase (€8.9bn, just 3%) on the direct payment EAGF fund currently in place.

However, it is not a direct successor to that fund.

Farm income supports - the term used by European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Christophe Hansen - encompasses the likes of agri-environmental schemes and investment aid, which currently are supported through pillar two EAFRD funding.

It leaves Hansen wide open to the accusation that the budget for farming has been slashed

It leaves Hansen wide open to the accusation that the budget for farming has been slashed by €86.6bn. This is the 22% cut being identified and lambasted by farm leaders, MEPs and others.

The blurred lines of the proposed €865bn fund mean Hansen can argue - and is arguing - that support will far exceed the €300bn that is guaranteed and will in fact exceed current support levels. It’s all very confusing and maybe that’s the whole point.

It suits Ursula von der Leyen to have everyone arguing about the purpose of the funding committed in the budget.

It certainly gives her and her Commission colleagues plausible deniability against accusations of having dismantled the CAP and its two separate pillars after decades of delivery.

Hansen hits family farms

Perhaps the best indicator of what the future CAP holds for Irish family farms is to look at the specific policy proposals Christophe Hansen unveiled on Wednesday.

The most eye-catching is the notion that all farmers of pensionable age be forced to choose between their state pension or their direct payments.

If that was introduced, about 40,000 Irish farmers would be affected. That’s one in three farmers - one in three farms.

With the average Irish farmer currently 59 (like me), that figure is more likely to go up than down between now and 2032, when it is proposed it be introduced. And it’s really a Hobson’s choice for most farmers.

They are perfectly entitled to their contributory pension - they have literally contributed toward it during their working lifetime. And by producing food, they are entitled to the farm support system that prevents such work from being a loss-making operation.

That’s what differentiates from someone in receipt of a pension acting as a teacher or nurse.

It’s not about the worthiness of the work, it’s about the cost of it. It wasn’t farmers who designed the CAP and it wasn’t just designed for farmers.

The existing guiding principles underpinning the CAP were restated this week among the avalanche of commission communication. It’s worth looking them over:

1. To increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress and by ensuring the rational development of agricultural production and the optimum utilisation of the factors of production, in particular labour.

2. Thus to ensure a fair standard of living for the agricultural community, in particular by increasing the individual earnings of persons engaged in agriculture;

3. To stabilise markets.

4. To assure the availability of supplies.

5. To ensure that supplies reach consumers at reasonable prices

Farm supports were initially put in place so farmers would be incentivised to increase production without getting a market price that would normally do that job. Payments meant production matched or outstripped supply, keeping prices low.

And over the 60 years of CAP, as Europe has become the highest-cost economy in the world and farm inputs have rocketed, the reality is that farming without supports makes little economic sense most of the time.

That is particularly true of drystock farming, and particularly true in Ireland, where the day-to-day cost of living is so high, even by European standards.

Of course, the proposal to take payments away from pension recipients is being presented as a generational renewal measure.

It is coupled with a commitment to put funding into supporting emerging farmers, but there are no specific proposals.

Instead, each member state government is invited to construct their own package. It’s very much a case of design your own carrot, but we’ll supply the stick.

Young farmers

Any young farmer coming into a farm where payments are over €20,000 will see that payment get a wallop. Every euro over the €20,000 mark will lose 25cent. It means a payment of €35,000 will slide by €3,750.

A decent-sized suckler farm, any cattle finisher of substance and most tillage farms will be hit by this measure. So they giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other, even for young farmers.

Family farms with two generations and two incomes will be particularly affected by these cuts, particularly as payments over €50,000 will be cut by half.

Are there any positive proposals? The Commission have suggested covering the wages of farmers who are sick or in need of a holiday.

This might come in handy, as most Irish farmers will be feeling decidedly unwell when studying these proposals.

Is appropriate assessment an appropriate tool?

Imagine if, prior to Sunday's All-Ireland Final, Pat Ryan and Liam Cahill were told they had an extra job of work to do.

They needed to provide a report prepared by a consultant confirming that none of their players would injure an opponent. This assessment would have to cover both the deliberate and accidental inflicting of pain.

It would be hard for any consultant to provide such an assurance. Perhaps one of the “he’s not that type of player” TV analysts would be willing to pen such a report.

But suppose the weather forecast predicted torrential rain? In such challenging weather conditions, it would be impossible to guarantee no bad outcome.

That is kind of what appropriate assessment will amount to. Consultants must be hired to predict whether farming at higher stocking rates will have a negative impact on habitats in special areas of conservation (SACs) and special protection areas (SPAs).

They will have to consider what will happen if a sudden and extreme weather event takes place. It’s a very challenging exercise for any person to conduct honestly

We all know that even where absolute best practice is followed, intense rain can wash nutrients out of land. It’s a very challenging exercise for any person to conduct honestly.

Farmers were told that the nitrates derogation would be assessed on results - that water quality would need to improve or at a very minimum not disimprove for the derogation to be renewed in the future.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s recent results show that the hard work being done on farms has led to a welcome and needed improvement in water quality.

But now farmers are being told that as well as proven good results, there will also need to be predicted good outcomes.

It's hard to see how appropriate assessments, which ultimately are a paper exercise, will avoid becoming characterised as one of two extremes.

Each assessment will either be a witch hunt or a whitewash, depending on whether it finds in favour of derogation farms or against them.

What is absolutely certain is that any confidence farmers might have in the system is being undermined by these constant changes in oversight.