Redistributing direct payments between and across Member States will have only marginal effects on EU production, recent studies show.
Tag Archives: decoupling
What is the likely cost of greening Pillar 1?
The Commission estimates that the gross cost of the green measures in Pillar 1 will be at least €5 billion, although the cost to farmers will be lower because reduced market supply will help to raise product prices. Is this the best way of spending €5 billion to maximise the value of the additional environmental benefits produced by farmers?
How decoupled is the Single Farm Payment?
Three of my Irish colleagues at the Teagasc Rural Economy Research Centre have conducted an interesting simulation to estimate the extent to which farmers treat the Single Farm Payment (SFP) as coupled or decoupled. Using the EU-wide partial equilibrium simulation model AGMEMOD, Peter Howley, Kevin Hanrahan and Trevor Donnellan project Irish production in the cattle [...]
Court of Auditors’ report on cross compliance is damning
It’s no wonder that the Commission suppressed the Court of Auditors report on cross compliance for as long as it could – the report is damning and undermines the Commission’s case for the legitimacy of EU farm subsidies. Speaking in 2005, Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel explained how she sees cross compliance in relation nearly [...]
The great targeting debate
Czech agriculture minister Petr Gandalovic made an curious statement at the informal Agriculture Council meeting held earlier this week in the French Alps. Mr Gandalovic, who will assume the chairmanship of the Council under the Czech EU Presidency in the first half of 2009, told his colleagues: “The more specific you make the policy, the [...]
Podcast: Latest on health check negotiations with Roger Waite
Roger Waite, editor of Agra Facts, talks about how the Commission’s health check proposals have gone down in recent meetings of the Agriculture Council. Debate has been focused on the extent to which EU farm subsidies will be further decoupled from production levels. We look ahead to the French presidency which begins tomorrow and discuss [...]
Limited administrative burden of the Single Farm Payment
Economists have long been interested in the costs associated with policies transferring income support to farmers. These costs include not only the resource costs associated with distorting production and consumption choices away from the market optimum (assuming that market prices fully reflect the social value placed on resources and outputs), but also the transactions costs [...]
New market develops in farm subsidies
Given that milk quota has been actively traded in the UK, producing so-called ‘sofa milkers’, it should come as no surprise that Single Farm Payments are now being bought and sold. Agricultural brokers WebbPaton did fifteen deals in one day recently. The market has been described as ‘ferocious’ with rights to subsidies ‘flying off the [...]
Investors buying up farm subsidies
The past week has seen a series of revelations in the media about the way that decoupled farm subsidies are operating in Scotland. It has become evident that farm subsidy entitlements are being sold by farmers and that investors – who may never have set foot on a farm – are buying up entitlements to [...]
Green box does distort trade, claims Indian study
A report commissioned by the Indian Department of Commerce and carried out by UNCTAD’s Indian team challenges the EU’s argument that decoupled aid payments have only a minimal trade distorting effect. According to the researchers’ model, EU farm exports would fall by a massive 45 per cent if Green Box subsidies were removed and production [...]
