A Head of government who has understood: On this occasion it is a Head of government who has stepped into the arena to defend European agriculture and to denounce the counter truths, absurdities, indeed, lies which for years have rained down on the CAP. I am referring to the position of the Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern in the “Financial Times” (see our bulletin 9035), which confirms the impression (which I had expressed in this section in bulletin 9027) that “understanding the importance of agriculture for Europe is progressing”. It is comforting to know that currently, even at the European Council, there is someone who is responding to the pernicious banalities that have been poisoning the debate on European agriculture; Jean-Claude Juncker will no longer be on his own.
Some timely corrections. If the irreplaceable role of farming and the need for a European agricultural policy are recognised, it will therefore be possible to go on to the following exercise, namely, how CAP can still iron out some aspects, which in the light of experience, do not correspond to the expectations of farmers or to economic reality. The first deviation that the CAP should get rid of is obviously the imbalance in the distribution of funding, which benefits the big landowners excessively (including the British Queen, and the Spanish Duchess being the main beneficiary) to the detriment of small and medium farmers. But I am not going to revert to this subject today. I would prefer to speak about the partial correction of some of the orientations of the revised system that has been implemented by taking into account the studies and analyses of some of the best specialists.
CAP reforms that have already been carried out have a lot of qualities, as the main shortcomings of the past (and they were substantial) have been eliminated. Marian Fischer Boel, Commissioner for agriculture was able to affirm that today's CAP “is not the caricature of previous depictions, giant butter mountains and billions of euros spent on producing unnecessary surpluses”. But at the same time the deviations of yesterday are being eliminated, these reforms have produced disadvantages and exaggerations by way of a ricochet effect, which farmers are complaining about. Several publications have spoken about it; I'll quote the analysis of the Paris “Institut Montaigne”, which appears to me to have effectively taken stock of the morale of farmers. Agricultural aid, we are aware, is no longer tied to production; farms have a right to it whatever the quantities produced, if certain conditions, notably, ecological, are met. This is the famous “uncoupling between subsidies and production”, in respect of WTO rules that banned production aid. The result, of the institute's “Ambition for Farming, Freedom for Farmers” study is that farmers are no longer entrepreneurs earning a living from their work and that “in the future it will even be possible to receive aid for producing nothing”. This situation “is the cause of an unprecedented identity crisis in the world of agriculture, resulting in farming becoming a devalued activity”. Misunderstanding between the world of agriculture and the rest of society has worsened. Public opinion in some Member States sees agriculture as a privileged and largely subsidised sector and farmers feel that their activity has been devalued and that in international negotiations, is used as a currency for obtaining concessions for industry and services. According to the study, these extreme positions are “caricatures”. The CAP is still paying for the mistakes of the past, as is the case when it promised to intensify production, provoking a massive use of fertiliser, the drying out of humid areas and the overexploitation of ground water tables in certain zones. This is still in people's minds as “the progress recently accomplished in more intelligent farming is never mentioned”, just as the positive ecological role of farming is ignored. It's also easily forgotten that the CAP has enabled the EU to be food self-sufficient: in 1962, it only produced 80% of its food consumption as opposed to 120% today”. This result has not been gained to the detriment of quality, on the contrary, as “products have never been as varied as they currently are”. The health crisis involving mad cow “was not provoked by farmers but by changing industrial conditions in the production of animal feed” (a too shorterm interpretation in my opinion).
What measures are needed for winning back trust? This is where the Institut Montaigne's study becomes important. I will be looking at its conclusions tomorrow.
(F.R.)