Northern Ireland Court Rules Zero Percent Modulation to Pillar II

In a suprise development, it has emerged that Northern Ireland’s administration will transfer, or modulate,  0% from Pillar I to Pillar II in its CAP plan for 2014-2019. This move is unexpected because as recently as 20th December, DARD (Department of Agriculture and Rural Development) Minister Michelle O Neill (Sinn Fein) “announced a 7% rate of transfer from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2 of the CAP for the years 2014 – 2019. This will result in a total transfer of approx €137.5million from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2.” This figure was already lower than figures for the rest of the UK: Scotland had stated that they intend to apply a rate of 9.5%, Wales will apply a rate of 15%, while England have declared a rate of 12%.  It is also the case that in the UK as a whole rural development funding has been, by European standards, historically low. Nevertheless, even this low has now been abandoned, in a way that will reduce the funding available for rural communities, agri-environmental schemes, farm diversification, innovation and improved environmental performance in general. So why has Northern Ireland made such a retrograde move?

Photo from wikimedia commons of Scrabo Tower in Newtownards, County Down by Guliolopez

Democratic Unionist Party Finance Minister Simon Hamilton objected to the decision to modulate 7% to Pillar II. This led to a  judicial review of the decision which was heard on 27th December. Lord Chief Justice Declan Morgan found a procedural error had been made, which had the effect of invalidating the 20th December decision. The judge ruled that Michelle O’Neill should have brought the funding transfer to the Executive before any final decision was  made. Time essentially ran out on 31st December, and the European Commission were notified of  the 0% modulation.

Expressing her disappointment, O Neill added: “we in the Executive will have to come up to the mark and make available funds to bridge the deficit which will support the farming sector, enhance the environment and meet the needs of rural communities.”

In Northern Ireland, the mainstream farm lobby has been against significant modulation to Pillar II, and in favour of maintaining direct payments at as high a rate as possible. However even the Ulster Farmers Union argued for no more than a 9% modulation to Pillar II. There has also been what was described as “a groundswell of opinion on the organic farming scheme“, which has resulted in a proposal to actually drop, entirely, the Organic Farming Scheme in Northern Ireland for the 2014-2019 period.

Responding to the high court ruling, Farming Life reported “Farmers For Action spokesman William Taylor has indicated that Minister O’Neill and, possibly, DARD have been ‘stopped in their tracks’, taking £135 million worth of direct payments from farmers covering the period 2015 – 2020. This is worth on average approximately £1,000 per year per farming family,” he added.”

On twitter, Linda Stewart, Environment Correspondent with the  Belfast Telegraph noted (in a personal capacity) that 40% of Northern Ireland’s farmers have been part of agri-environmental schemes, and that  “if we don’t meet our EU environment commitments we could find ourselves getting hit by big infraction fines down the line.” She also pointed to a potentially ominous future for biodiversity in Northern Ireland, tweeting “Curlew & lapwing to go extinct in NI within a couple of years, RSPB warns. Decline was starting to reverse due to agri environment schemes.”

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About Oliver Moore 210 Articles

Dr. Oliver Moore is the communications director and editor-in-chief with ARC2020. He has a PhD in the sociology of farming and food, where he specialised in organics and direct sales. He is published in the International Journal of Consumer Studies, International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology and the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. A weekly columnist and contributor with Irish Examiner, he is a regular on Countrywide (Irish farm radio show on the national broadcaster RTE 1) and engages in other communications work around agri-food and rural issues, such as with the soil, permaculture, climate change adaptation and citizen science initiative Grow Observatory . He lectures part time in the Centre for Co-operative Studies UCC.

A propos d'Oliver Moore
Oliver voyage beaucoup moins qu’auparavant, pour ce qui concerne son activité professionnelle. Il peut néanmoins admirer par la fenêtre de son bureau les mésanges charbonnières et les corbeaux perchés au sommet du saule dans le jardin de sa maison au cœur de l’écovillage de Cloughjordan, en Irlande. L’écovillage est un site de 67 acres dans le nord du Tipperary. Il comprend d’espaces boisés, des paysages comestibles, des lieux de vie, d’habitation et de travail, ainsi qu’une ferme appartenant à la communauté. Les jours où il travaille dans le bureau du centre d’entreprise communautaire, il profite d’une vue sur les chevaux, les panneaux solaires, les toilettes sèches et les jardins familiaux. 

Ce bureau au sein de l’écovillage constitue en effet un tiers-lieu de travail accueillant également des collaborateurs des associations Cultivate et Ecolise, ainsi qu’un laboratoire de fabrication (« fab lab »). 

Oliver est membre du conseil d’administration de la ferme communautaire (pour la seconde fois !) et donne également des cours sur le Master en coopératives, agroalimentaire et développement durable à l’University College Cork. Il a une formation en sociologie rurale : son doctorat et les articles qu’il publie dans des journaux scientifiques portent sur ce domaine au sens large.

Il consacre la majorité de son temps de travail à l’ARC 2020. Il collabore avec ARC depuis 2013, date à laquelle l’Irlande a assuré la présidence de l’UE pendant six mois. C’est là qu’il a pu constater l’importance de la politique agroalimentaire et rurale grâce à sa chronique hebdomadaire sur le site d’ARC. Après six mois, il est nommé rédacteur en chef et responsable de la communication, poste qu’il occupe toujours aujourd’hui. Oliver supervise le contenu du site web et des médias sociaux, aide à définir l’orientation de l’organisation et parfois même rédige un article pour le site web. 

À l’époque où on voyageait davantage, il a eu la chance de passer du temps sous les tropiques, où il a aidé des ONG irlandaises de commerce équitable – au Ghana, au Kenya, au Mali, en Inde et au Salvador – à raconter leur histoire.

Il se peut que ces jours-là reviennent. Pour son compte Oliver continuera de préférer naviguer en Europe par bateau, puis en train. Après tout, la France n’est qu’à une nuit de navigation. En attendant, il y a toujours de nombreuses possibilités de bénévolat dans la communauté dans les campagnes du centre de l’Irlande.