The Cap measures announced by Cabinet Secretary Richard Lochhead on Wednesday have been broadly welcomed by industry experts.
As with any change in direction of support there will be winners and losers.
Mr Lochhead listened to the last minute pleas of the beef industry which wanted a five-year transition to a full area payment system by 2019.
An overnight change with no transition could have decimated the beef industry within 12 months. With finished prices dropping drastically it would have been the final nail in the coffin for many struggling livestock businesses.
The package of measures introduced to help boost the beef industry is welcome in particular the boost to the beef calf payments for those on the islands – €235 (£189) for the first 10 calves and €150 (£121) flat rate thereafter which is €65 (£52) more than the mainland figures.
The Pillar 2 Beef measures that will be introduced will driver greater efficiencies into the industry with benchmarking and carbon audits becoming the norm rather than the exemption.
Those farmers who did not have any entitlements under the current system will now get access to the National Reserve from day one although all businesses will have to top slice possibly 10% of their current payment to fund it.
The proposed three region payment system looks on the face of it to be the easiest to implement from a SGRPID point of view but does bring another layer of complexity intro an already complex processing system.
Priority for the civil servants now must be to ensure payments are not delayed to the extent they were in England when such a change happened several years ago.
At last there is some clarity on the various greening measures that have worried the more intense arable producers in the country.
Measures such as winter cropping and fertiliser plans on permanent grass (PGRS) land should at least allow 2015 harvest plans to be implemented this back end.
Ecological Focus Areas (set-aside in old money) have also been clarified and can include buffer strips, ditches, hedges, catch crops and nitrogen fixing crops – 92% of farm businesses will not have to change very much to achieve their greening credentials
The 500,000 euros cap being introduced might harm some of the country’s bigger farming units which currently employ many staff. Job cuts and knock on effects in the supply industries may well happen as a result.
The measures introduced to help new starts is welcome but unless there is more land made available to allow these businesses to start and grow then there may not be much of a take up on them. 70,000 euros (around £56,000) per new start business plus a 15 euros (£12) per hectare top up on the area is a welcome increase from previous schemes.
On Pillar 2 the annual £10million increase to the agri-environment pot is welcome but the lack of any major capital investments is a blow.
The devil will be in the finer details that will emerge on how these measures will be implemented on the ground. Without doubt they will be complicated – be prepared.
*Gordon Mcconachie works in CKD Galbraith’s rural division