NFU attacks plan for hill area aid

03 February 1999

NFU attacks plan for hill area aid

By FWi staff

PLANS to base hill-farm subsidies on area rather than the number of livestock are unfair, claims the National Farmers Union (NFU).

Moving to area aid could lead to a massive and unfair redistribution of support money, said Peter Allen, chairman of the NFUs less-favoured areas committee.

“Too many people just plucked the idea of area payments from the air without looking at the real implications,” he told delegates at the NFU AGM in London yesterday (Tuesday).

The NFU and other European farmers unions have pledged to block the plan, which is laid out in the Agenda 2000 proposals to reform the Common Agricultural Policy.