On 10 November last, the Ministry of Agriculture approved the amendments to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for its application from 1 January 2018. These changes concern four Royal Decrees dealing with direct payments to agriculture, livestock and other support schemes as well as the management and control of rural development payments; the allocation of basic payment entitlements; the geographical information system for agricultural parcels and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) cross-compliance rules and the cross-compliance rules for the 2018 marketing year.
Already in the previous edition of the Olive Fair the uncertainty among professionals was palpable due to the repercussions that the implementation of these measures would have on the olive sector.
Among other things, the main changes concern the payment for climate- and environment-friendly farming practices and the information transmitted from the Member States to the European Commission. In addition, the improvement and extension of technical adjustments in the management of direct payments is also included.
In addition, the conditions for the exercise of agricultural activity in small farmers will also be changed in terms of the simplification of the support scheme, where there will be a possibility to select the basic payment entitlements to be activated and to include new support use schemes in the period of amendment of the single application.
With regard to the amendments referred to at the beginning of this article on SIGPAC, it will be necessary to provide more detailed information by the farmer, so that the cadastral reference will be included in the SIGPAC database, as well as the right of access to the crop declaration data of the cadastral holders of the plots.
Young farmers will also benefit from these measures, in particular when receiving aid conditional on the introduction of new provisions, it will facilitate their entry into farming. They will also have an advantage in cases of forced expropriation or land consolidation, where transfers of basic payment entitlements are simplified.