Proposals announced by the European Commission for reforming the rules that govern the fruit and vegetable sectors, including potatoes, may be a cause for real concern. The proposals are complex, detailed and have yet to be fully clarified. However, it is clear that the most significant proposal is to integrate fruit and vegetable sector into the Single Farm Payment Scheme (SFPS).
Land covered by fruit and vegetables will be eligible for payment entitlements under the decoupled aid scheme which applies in other farm sectors. All existing support for processed F&V will be decoupled and the national budgetary ceilings for the SPS will be increased. The proposal could cause problems in Member States that adopted the historic model of allocating SFP entitlements and are therefore not paying support payments on land used to grow fruit and vegetables, at the same time other countries, such as England, are already paying support to the fruit and vegetable sectors as their scheme is area-based and not only targeted at farmers who traditionally operated in subsidised sectors.
One of the main concerns is also the insufficient rate of the Community financial assistance, which according to the Commission paper shall be capped at 4,1% of the value of the marketed production of each producer organisation. European Parliament’s rapporteur Salinas Garcia proposes to increase funding to 6% since, according to the Commission proposal, Producer Organisations (PO) are being obliged to do more with the same money. In this respect, the rapporteur also suggests extending to other scenarios the increase to 60% of the reserved bonus for specific cases. It is impossible to maintain the aids of 4.1% of the commercialized production and simultaneously apply bonus of 60%, it appears as a false approach which can be an obstacle for a great number of POs.
On the other hand, there is a clear need for a greater protection of the sector from products imported from third countries, like reciprocity and other instruments, for example price monitoring by competent authorities.
Looking objectively it seems that these proposed measures position CAP more in line with a health perspective. However, these proposals cannot work properly without an increase in the budget allocated for the F&V sector, which currently receives the smallest portion of the whole budget set aside for the CAP. And given that the European Commission is planning to reduce the cost of the whole CAP, the only one solution might be reducing other sector’s subsidies.