Brussels, 15/12/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 15 December, the European Commission adopted a proposal aimed at excluding maize from the list of cereals that have access to intervention as of November 2007. The proposal has been passed on the Council and Parliament for adoption, while professionals of the sector have already rallied against the proposal. Compensation will be offered to Hungary as it is the Member State that is the most directly affected by abolition of this management tool. Over the next two years, the Commission will in fact be suggesting a reduction of the financial costs resulting from public intervention purchases of soft wheat and barley in Member States with high interest rates.
“Unless we make this change, public stocks will continue to rise and many farmers will simply continue to grow maize for sale into public storage. The experience with rye shows that the removal of intervention for this cereal in 2003 resulted in a more dynamic market and better prices for farmers. Even with this change for maize, cereals growers will continue to benefit from intervention operating as a safety net for other major cereals like wheat and barley”, explained Mariann Fischer Boel, Agriculture Commissioner.
Data show that, at the end of the 2005/2006 harvest year, intervention stocks of Community maize had spiralled to the record figure of 5.6 million tonnes, i.e. nearly 40% of the total of all intervention stocks. Most intervention maize (93%) is today stored in Hungary. Without amending the current intervention system, public stocks of maize could total 15.6 million tonnes in 2013. The possibilities for finding outlets for intervention stocks of maize, in exponential growth, remain limited. The Commission has already adopted stricter eligibility criteria to ensure that maize entering intervention is more suited to storage, but “this is not a definitive solution to the problem of rising stocks”, the Commission explains. Ending maize intervention would entail global savings of €617.8 million over the period 2008-2014. Annual expenditure would fall below €300 million as of the 2008 budget year and below €200 million as of 2012 (compared to over €300 million at present). Experience gained from rye shows that withdrawing this cereal from intervention in 2003 brought about more market oriented production and better prices for producers.
According to the agricultural organisations in the EU (COPA and COGECA), the Commission is cruelly lacking in consistency. “While the Commission tells us that intervention will be discussed on the occasion of the 'Health Check' on the one hand, it proposes a quasi immediate elimination of intervention for maize on the other, whereas it has just tightened the quality criteria for intervention for maize. This makes no sense!”, they say, trusting that the Council will reject the proposal as its stands. (lc)