Lords call for reform to EU farming aid strategy

Jun 5 2009 by Karen Dent, The Journal

THERE are calls for reforms to a European initiative that provides funding for hard-to-farm areas such as hill farms.

The demand for major changes to the EU Less Favoured Areas (LFA) scheme comes in a report from the House of Lords’ EU Committee, which has been looking into the issue.

It argues that LFA funding is supposed to maintain farming in marginal areas where farming benefits the environment and landscape and said it was not designed to help people in economic hardship.

The committee says there are other streams of European money available to help struggling people.

“Society does not owe unconditional support to farmers wishing to farm in areas affected by natural handicaps,” said the report.

It supported EC plans to set up a Europe-wide checklist to identify disadvantaged areas through problems such as poor soil, steep slopes and extreme climate but it said the UK and Ireland’s climate caused different issues to those faced by farmers on the Continent.

It suggested the introduction of “field capacity day” to take into account problems caused by persistent rain, like the weather that hit the UK last year.

Overall, the committee said it had not been able to draw firm conclusions on the effectiveness of the scheme.

Committee chairman Lord Sewel said: “The Less Favoured Areas scheme is in need of an overhaul to ensure it performs the function for which it is intended.

“Historically, the LFA scheme has been perceived as a way of providing economic support to marginal and remote areas in order to prevent depopulation and land abandonment. But since the EU's rural development policy was reorganised in 2005, other specially adapted policy instruments for achieving those goals have been put in place.

“The LFA scheme now needs to be adapted to its new role within that wider framework.”

For the NFU a number of issues in the report are causing concern.

A spokesman said: “We must disagree with the House of Lords view that we need a swift adoption of reforms to the EU Less Favoured Areas scheme. The aim of establishing common criteria across Europe for designating LFAs is very ambitious and complex and should not be rushed.

“We are just moving in England from a Hill Farming Allowance to an Upland Entry Level Scheme; the transition has not been easy and we do not want a further period of upheaval.” It also argued that the scheme was not simply about protecting the environment and the landscape.

“We believe that there are also significant social and economic benefits in preventing de-population of these areas and there are not other policy instruments readily available to meet these objectives,” said the spokesman.