Having previously run a highly visible campaign threatening to derail the imminent referendum on the EU’s Lisbon Treaty on account of the EU’s negotiating position in the WTO, the Irish Farmers Association has fallen back into line with it’s longstanding position of support for Irish membership of the EU. As previously noted, Ireland does spectacularly well out of the CAP, and it looks as though the IFA has extracted a promise from the new Irish prime minister Brian Cowen that he was prepared to veto any WTO deal that was bad for Ireland. … Read the rest
Irish farmers: biting the hand that feeds them?
The Republic of Ireland will hold a referendum on ratification of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty on 12 June 2008. The Irish Farmers Association is urging a No vote, on the grounds that the EU’s push towards more open world markets in agriculture could expose them to competition from overseas, notably from Latin America.
Ireland gets way more than it’s fair share of EU farm handouts. And this fact will not be lost to other member states if Ireland votes to derail the Lisbon Treaty. The EU is currently engaged in a fundamental, ‘once in generation’ review of its budget. The main target for cuts appears to be the agriculture budget, which accounts for around 45% of all EU spending.… Read the rest
Podcast: February Agriculture Council round-up with Roger Waite
Roger Waite is a long-standing member of the Brussels agricultural press pack and he will be giving a podcast round-up of the monthly Agriculture Council meetings, when farm ministers from all 27 EU member states met to decide the future of EU agriculture and rural development policy. In this month’s meeting, EU farm ministers debated the Commission’s ideas for the health check, the latest position of the WTO Doha Round negotiations and the impact of rising feed prices on European pig farmers.
As well as being the founding editor of the AgraFacts news subscription service, Roger is a Journalism Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.… Read the rest
New Irish animal welfare payment sets interesting precedent
When is a direct payment not a coupled payment? When it is an animal welfare payment. No, this is not a riddle found in my Christmas party cracker, but a response to the news that the Irish Government has just been given the go-ahead to introduce an animal welfare payment for Ireland’s 65,000 suckler cow herds. The Animal Recording, Welfare and Breeding Scheme, to give the payment its full title, will commence on 1st January 2008 and run for five years up to 31st December 2012. In return for complying with seven basic requirements, including calf registration, de-budding, castration where appropriate, a minimum calving age, appropriate weaning procedures including the introduction of meal feeding, animal events recording and taking part in a training and education course, suckler producers will qualify for an annual grant of €80 per cow, up to a maximum of 100 cows per herd (more specific details can be found here).… Read the rest
Meat: facing the dilemmas
The excellent Food Ethics published by the Food Ethics Council has devoted its latest issue to this theme. You can read excerpts online here. There are a lot of issues related to increasing meat consumption: climate change; health issues; water scarcity and biodiversity loss from clearing forests to make way for pasture and feed production; and animal welfare, which is certainly not a luxury we can no longer afford.… Read the rest
Agflation goes mainstream
A report on the UK’s Channel 4 News looks at likely increases in the prices of meat in the UK and elsewhere, as a result of increases in world cereals prices. A subject that has been discussed for several months here on CAP Health Check has entered the mainstream. View the report below the fold, including a short clip of me explaining the impact of changing diets in China. See also a feature story in The Guardian, drawing on neo-Malthusian Lester Brown’s latest book ‘Who will feed China?’… Read the rest