mr president my thanks to the council commission and rapporteur for all the hard work that has gone into this
the only thing simple about the common agricultural policy which has been ignored in this debate is that the budget is fixed and declining and yet the demands we are making on this policy are expanding including climate change biodiversity and water management
intelligent water management is a very good idea and local authorities need to fix leaks
how intelligent is that let me move on to milk
what is wrong with providing for a two increase in quota and trusting farmers who can produce for the market-place to do that
this is not compulsory
let the farmers decide
on sheep the aylward report has raised huge expectations which we in this parliament support
they cannot be let down when the council comes to its final decisions
on modulation and article sixty-eight we are talking about recycling funds from agriculture to these new challenges
it cannot be done and if it is done it can only be done with fewer rules rather than more rules which tends to be the case
the biggest threat to the cap and to european farmers is in the budget review the legacy of tony blair to this institution where financing of agriculture is under threat
in reply to the lisbon treaty comment from my colleague liam aylward may i say that yes inspections did cause a problem
i would suggest that farmers in ireland will now be supportive of the lisbon treaty because they fear that member states will have more control over agriculture policy and they know the dangers of that from our budget for two thousand and nine when the irish government slashed support for agriculture they trust europe more than their member state
we must remember that
the biggest problem for farmers across europe is income volatility and price volatility
we need market support measures
they have got to be more flexible and more intelligent and used when we need them otherwise we abandon family farming and we will destroy what we have created in europe which is a supply of good-quality safe food
i wish you luck in your deliberations
