Jim Nicholson meets new agriculture commissioner

Mr Nicholson said: “It was great to meet again with my former MEP colleague who I worked with on the European Parliament Agriculture committee Janus Wojciehowski who is now the new commissioner for agriculture and comes from Poland.

“We had a wide ranging discussion on how the commission and he were approaching the new CAP reform which still has to begin. Some things never change and with CAP reform the budget is central and this is only now beginning to be discussed by the remaining 27 member states.

“This will take some months to agree with the decision on the percentage of the budget that will go to agriculture. What was evident to me was that the power of the environmental lobby has increased and will be having a greater say on what the next reform will contain.

“And what will the support for pillar one or pillar two be?

“These will be hard fought out by everyone in Brussels and if the new Green Deal is to succeed or work at local level more money will need to be made available to the overall budget if they are to meet the required level the new directives will inevitably contain.

“These are clearly some of the many problems facing the new commissioner. Having seen many CAP reforms my view is this one will be more difficult than ever before and they will do well to get agreement within the lifetime of this parliament.”

Mr Nicholson added: “I also took the opportunity to inform the commissioner of the many problems facing Northern Ireland agriculture and our farmers with the 25 percent drop in income.

“But also how the future of the industry will work especially with the proposed border in the Irish Sea and how Northern Ireland farmers will have to implement and follow all EU directives without the knowledge of what support they may or may not receive ongoing from the UK government for the extra burden that will be placed on them.

“I also raised with the commissioner the fact Northern Ireland will have no direct input into the reform or to Brussels at present and could he see an improvement as we go forward and the process evolves.

“Luckily he assured me he will always be prepared to meet.”