Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy

Much farmland is held in trust. The concept of the trust was originally devised in the middle ages to protect land, which was virtually the only form of wealth or capital investment at the time. More recently, agricultural land has been seen as enjoying valuable tax reliefs. Many trustees will therefore have some interest in agriculture. In economic terms, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU has been of the greatest importance in supporting UK agriculture, and currently one of the most important elements of that is the Single Farm Payment (SFP). Against a background of economic pressure, CAP reform is being discussed. Among the proposals being discussed is the limitation of SFP to ‘active farmers’. This proposal has surfaced, because the European Court of Auditors was critical of the present regime under which payments could be made to a person who had no involvement in agriculture at all. On 12 October 2011, the European Commission released a ‘Proposal for a Regulation amending the regime of the Single Farm Payment’.