Helicopters and 61 ground inspectors descended on Connemara to count sheep in a Single Farm Payment exercise which more resembled the invasion of Iraq rather than the benign hand of Europe.

This was stated by Marian Harkin MEP in the European Parliament in Strasbourg today, Tuesday, November 18th in the debate on reform of the Common Agricultural policy.

Simplification was the buzz word in the EU at present but the numbers of inspectors involved in policing farmers had escalated, the Independent MEP said.  “In recent weeks we had a number of helicopters, flanked by 61 ground inspectors counting the sheep on the hills of Connemara, a small area where the price of sheep will not even repay the investment by farmers”, she said.

This was a wasteful exercise and conveyed an image of an over bureaucratic Europe acting in a totally disproportionate manner which was bad for agriculture and bad for Europe, she said.

The Single Farm Payment had declined by 15% since 2005 due to inflation and other factors and there was a proposal for further cuts, she said.  She emphasised that the CAP health check could not be decoupled from factors such as food safety food traceability and, above all, food security.  “The numbers of farmers continue to decrease very significantly year on year and an increase in compulsory modulation is quite simply putting your hand in the pocket of Europe’s farmers”, Marian Harkin MEP said.

In her reply to the debate EU Commissioner Marian Fischer Boel rejected the suggestion that increased modulation was putting a hand in farmers’ pockets and she insisted that increased funding was involved.  However, following the debate, Marian Harkin pointed out that the funding referred to by the Agriculture Commissioner was directed towards achieving environmental and other objectives of the EU rather than contributing to farmers incomes and the sustainable farming which was vital to food security in the EU for the future.