Farming

Common Agriculture Policy
Home > Our work > Farming > Policy > Common Agriculture Policy > Results of the CAP Health Check

Results of the CAP Health Check

Agriculture around Lough Foyle, set-aside at Black Brae

Following the Health Check, set-aside was formally abolished. Although originally introduced as a production control measure, set-aside brought many benefits to farmland wildlife and its loss, without a robust mechanism in place to capture these benefits, means wildlife is likely to suffer.

The UK was the only country to make set-aside a negotiating priority and managed to secure a change to cross compliance allowing Member States 'to establish and/or retain habitats' if they wanted to. This will allow Defra to develop a new requirement (within GAEC) for farmers in England to place a small percentage of arable land under 'environmental management.'

Potential management options for this land include winter stubbles followed by spring crops and grass buffers. Farmers will be encouraged to undertake more demanding management through Environmental Stewardship 'top-up' options.

Although the RSPB heartily welcomes this new tool, it is the only one of its kind and other EU countries must develop comparable measures to protect farmland biodiversity. As with the majority of cross compliance changes, the new requirement will come into force in 2010.

The UK was the only country to make set-aside a negotiating priority and managed to secure a change to cross compliance

Two further changes are the introduction of compulsory buffer strips by watercourses (which will come into force in 2012) and protection for specific landscape features. For the UK, these changes may have minimal impact as England and Scotland already have buffer strips by watercourses and the concept of protecting landscape features (such as hedgerows) is already well established.

The measures are extremely positive, however, and, as long as appropriate guidance is given, will facilitate better cross compliance requirements across the EU.

One worrying change to cross compliance concerns the removal of a number of articles related to the Birds and Habitats directives. In particular, the RSPB is concerned that the removal of article 8 of the Birds directive, which outlaws the use of indiscriminate killing methods (such as traps or poisoned baits) will take with it a valuable deterrent against the persecution of wild birds.

This article is of particular importance as it was used in Scotland recently to withhold over £100,000 of Single Payment money following the discovery of banned chemicals on an estate, suspected of being used in the persecution of birds of prey. Although other key articles still remain within cross compliance to protect wild bird populations, the removal of these articles sends a worrying message.

Although the Health Check agreed higher rates of compulsory modulation (rising to 10 per cent by 2012) there will be no additional money for the UK's Rural Development Programmes (including agri-environment schemes) due to the use of voluntary modulation. This will make it much harder for the UK to re-focus attention to the 'new challenges' identified by the EU: climate change, biodiversity, water management, renewable energies and dairy.

In order to raise additional funds, each of the UK countries is likely to investigate ways of using 'national envelopes' – where up to 10 per cent of Single Payment funding can be diverted to specific projects delivering environmental or social benefits.

Last modified: 09 December 2008