Schedule 5 to the UK Agricultural Bill includes powers for the Welsh Ministers to amend and extend retained direct EU legislation and modify legislation relating to the Rural Development Programme (RDP). Welsh Government is proposing to continue with the existing CAP regulatory framework until new agricultural support schemes are available - probably after 2023 - while making some changes that are in some areas relatively minor, and in others significant - particularly with regard to Pillar 2 and the principles which underpin the RDP.
The first half of the consultation document - up to question seventeen - sets out eleven proposals for making adjustments to the current Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) from the 2021 scheme year until the new Sustainable Farming Scheme is developed and implemented.
Some of the BPS proposals include:
- to set the Welsh BPS ceiling annually, and provide flexibility for Welsh Ministers to allocate any remaining funding allocated to BPS
- to only take Welsh land into account for calculating BPS claims in Wales
- remove crop diversification requirements of Greening Rules
- removing the Young Farmer scheme
- to change the payment model and remove the need for claims to be fully validated before making an advance of payment of 70% (BPS loan scheme) of the anticipated claim value.
The second half of the document - arguably the most important - sets out proposals to rewrite the objectives and priorities of the RDP to be inline with the Environment (Wales) Act 2016, the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, and the United Nations definition of sustainable land management, including a framework for the sustainable management of natural resources.
There are major concerns associated with how these changes to the long-established EU definition of Rural Development (RD) will impact farm businesses and rural communities, with the changes clearly designed to pave the way for Welsh Ministers to shape it in a way that reflects the principles that underpin their proposed Sustainable Farming Scheme.
The existing EU funded BPS (claim year 2019 and earlier), and RDP schemes will continue to operate under EU law pursuant to the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement.
The consultation will be discussed in FUW County Executive meetings throughout September and a response based on the views of committees will be prepared and sent on behalf of the FUW.
The consultation document can be viewed here: gov.wales/sustainable-farming-and-our-la...agricultural-support.
The deadline for responses was 23rd October 2020 and the final FUW response can be viewed here.