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From left, FUW president Emyr Jones, EU Parliament agriculture committee chairman and former Italian minister for agriculture Professor Paolo De Castro and FUW deputy president Glyn Roberts[/caption]
The Farmers' Union of Wales met with European Commission officials, Welsh MEPs, EU agriculture committee members and a member of EU Commissioner Dacian Ciolo?' cabinet to discuss Welsh priorities for the Common Agricultural Policy during a four-day visit to Brussels this week.
After returning to Wales, FUW president Emyr Jones said today: "A great deal is up in the air at the moment regarding how the policy will look once implemented, partly because of the failure to reach an agreement over the EU budget.
"While we have major concerns regarding some areas, a number of the concerns we have been highlighting over the past eighteen months seem to have been taken on board."
Mr Jones said that, while the FUW maintained its objection to greening the first pillar, there was a general acceptance that some form of greening would occur, even if the CAP budget was reduced.
"However, a number of changes are being discussed which would significantly reduce the burden of greening for Welsh farmers, and this has to be welcomed," said Mr Jones.
One such change is the proposal to exempt farms which largely comprise permanent grassland from the requirement to grow multiple crops on areas categorised as "arable" - which would include areas where crops such as rape are cultivated - provided the area concerned was no more than 20 hectares.
"This is just one of the proposals being discussed in order to address concerns raised by the FUW with the commission and parliament as long as 18 months ago.
"Such a concession would allow those who rely on cultivating crops for their own use to continue doing so, thereby helping farms to remain efficient and reduce CO2, feed and transport costs, while also ensuring that the biodiversity benefits of growing crops are not lost."
Mr Jones warned that the threat of a reduced real terms CAP budget had to be recognised. "We believe and continue to argue that the CAP budget should at least be maintained at current levels.
"However, we must be aware of the real threat that discussions over the coming months could have an adverse impact on the budget.
"As such, it is essential that bureaucracy is reduced under the future CAP. Even the freezing of the CAP budget in nominal terms would mean a real terms reduction, yet many of the draft proposals would mean increased costs for farmers and devolved administrations.
"It would be wholly unacceptable to ask farmers and the Welsh Government to deal with more costly rules and bureaucracy while delivering a reduced budget, and any perceived benefits in terms of cuts to the EU budget could in fact be lost through administrative costs for the industry and the implementing authorities."
Mr Jones said that the FUW's longstanding anticipation that Pillar 1 changes would not come into force until 2015 seemed now to be universally accepted, despite claims just months ago that a 2014 implementation date was still a possibility.
"The prospect of the Welsh Government making decisions as to what aspects of a new Regulation should be implemented in 2014, and making all the necessary administrative changes, all in a period of just a few months is a very worrying one, so the prospect of full implementation in 2015 rather than 2014 has to be welcomed.
"However, it does seem likely that changes to Pillar 2 will be implemented in 2014, as originally intended, in order to ensure continuity."
