Worsley tells conference that CLA dislikes Brussels CAP reform plan

CLA President William Worsley told the Northern Farming Conference that the Association does not like the way the European Commission is proposing to go about ’greening’ the Common Agricultural Policy.

Mr Worsley said ’simple, generalised, annual non-contractual measures’ are not the way to deliver ’sensitive care for the rural environment’.

The CLA President told the Conference: ’Good stewardship of the environment requires steady long-term measures appropriately devised to deal with both the complexities of the natural environment ’ soil, water, climate biodiversity and landscape ’ and with the realities of 21st Century farming.’

He said the CLA argued strongly that the reforms must not penalise those who are already greening, as looks set to happen with farmers signed-up into Environmental Stewardship schemes.

Mr Worsley said the CLA is ’very unhappy’ about three other aspects of the proposals: the cumbersome and highly discriminatory definition of ’active farmer’; the progressive reduction and capping of payments both in principle and on grounds of practicality; and the arbitrary back-dated requirement that those who can establish entitlements in 2014 must have activated at least one entitlement in 2011.