A Multicommodity EU Policy Framework Incorporating Public Good Criteria into the Direct Payment System in Agriculture

For decades the CAP has been the major influence in shaping EU agriculture and food production. The economic and policy environment in the EU is now very different from that which prevailed in the earlier decades. The future economic, social and geographic diversity of the EU will be further increased by enlargement. Agricultural policies and the related operational frameworks will inevitably change to accommodate this added diversity and the changing societal and consumer values. This paper evaluates how the current shape of EU agriculture has been influenced by the reforms to date. It also attempts to focus on where EU farming may be, or wish to go, over the next decade. The evaluation is restricted to the beef sector as it has been to the forefront in the policy reforms of the last decade and because the adjustments were inevitably complex due to the scale of the oversupply problems, the biological and market intricacies involved. This evaluation concluded that the current EU beef policy is severely constrained with poor targeting of the income supports, high production costs, based on an administratively complex and expensive control system without any clear benefit to either society or taxpayer for a rather large expenditure. In the past, agricultural policy in the EU was primarily driven by the need for a secure food supply and with the objective of sustaining the economic and social needs of farmers. But, in the well fed and affluent EU society of the 21st century, agricultural policy will be mainly driven by the economic and social goals which are rapidly changing. This society places a declining value on extra units of food production, but an increasing value on any public goods consumed in the production process. As a consequence, the mix of agricultural production and public goods that this society is prepared to support financially is changing rapidly. The level and components of farm incomes in the EU in the 21st century will reflect these changes. Farm revenue will likely consist of a mix of payments for conventional agricultural products and public goods. The public good payments will be conditional on the level and type of inputs used, farming practices, types of products produced and a societal vision of the role of farming. This will affect production costs, scale of operation and the future configuration of agriculture and rural society. To meet this evolving situation the paper also develops and outlines a multicommodity framework by which the EU could reorient its direct payment (DP) system to incorporate a range of public good values to the mutual benefit of consumers, taxpayers and farmers.CAP reform, direct payments for public goods, animal welfare, environment, food safety, production methods, extensive production, economic, social and geographic diversity, future role of farming, an administrative framework., Agricultural Finance,

The impact of feed resource costs on the relative competitiveness of beef with other meats

End of year reportThese reforms represented a major turning point in fundamental structure of EU agricultural policy. This, at the time of implementation, created much uncertainty at both institutional and farm level in relation to future feed resource costs, cattle and beef prices and related market outlooks. However, as this report shows, the reality for Irish cattle farmers was rather different. As a result much of the research effort during the lifespan of the project was diverted to explaining the causes of the unforeseen outcomes together with the implications of policy decisions and related market developments

POLICY options

End of project reportThe incomes of Irish cattle farmers benefited greatly from the reform of the CAP for beef and cereals in 1992 and more recently under Agenda 2000. In both of these reforms the institutional support prices were reduced and animal-based direct payments (DPs) were used to compensate farmers for the anticipated market price reductions

Evaluation of supply control options for beef

End of project reportThe incomes of Irish cattle farmers benefited greatly from the reform of the CAP for beef and cereals in 1992 and more recently under Agenda 2000. In both of these reforms the institutional support prices were reduced and direct payments (DPs) were used to compensate farmers for the price reduction

Development of a Strategic Approach for a Single EU Beef Market. Extensification. An Analysis of National and Competitive Issues

Working paperThe economic merits of the two Options for extensification under Agenda 2000 were evaluated in relation to their ability to generate revenue and their impact on the competitiveness of Irish cattle farming

New technologies in clinical microbiology

Rapid identification of microorganisms in the clinical microbiology laboratory can be of great value for selection of optimal patient management strategies for infections caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi, mycobac-teria, and parasites. Rapid identification of microorganisms in clinical samples enables expedient de-escala-tion from broad-spectrum agents to targeted antimicrobial therapy. The switch to tailored therapy minimizes risks of antibiotics, namely, disruption of normal flora, toxic side effects, and selective pressure. There is a critical need for new technologies in clinical microbiology, particularly for bloodstream infections, in which associated mortality is among the highest of all infections. Just as importantly, there is a need for the clinical laboratory community to embrace the practices of evidence-based interventional laboratory medicine and collaborate in translational research projects to establish the clinical utility, cost benefit, and impact of new technologies. The topic “new technologies ” described here was part of a group session entitled Clinical Microbiology in the Year 2015, part of the 2011 Camp Clin Micro meeting held in Houston, TX. The discussion focused on new and emerging laboratory methods, specifically those related to identification of blood

Rapid simultaneous identification and quantitation of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa directly from bronchoalveolar lavage specimens using automated microscopy

AbstractDiagnosis of ventilator-assisted pneumonia (VAP) requires pathogen quantitation of respiratory samples. Current quantitative culture methods require overnight growth, and pathogen identification requires an additional step. Automated microscopy can perform rapid simultaneous identification and quantitation of live, surface-immobilized bacteria extracted directly from patient specimens using image data collected over 3 h. Automated microscopy was compared to 1 μL loop culture and standard identification methods for Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas spp. in 53 remnant bronchoalveolar lavage specimens. Microscopy identified 9/9 S. aureus and 7/7 P. aeruginosa in all specimens with content above the VAP diagnostic threshold. Concordance for specimens containing targets above the diagnostic threshold was 13/16, with concordance for sub-diagnostic content of 86/90. Results demonstrated that automated microscopy had higher precision than 1 μL loop culture (range ~0.55 log versus ≥1 log), with a dynamic range of ~4 logs (~103 to 106 CFU/mL)

Economics of Cattle Production Systems Post CAP Reform.

End of Project ReportThe radical reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the early 1990’s impacted directly and indirectly on most of the farm enterprises in Ireland. The direct focus of the reform was largely confined to the cereal and beef enterprises. The reforms consisted of: • A phased reduction in the institutional support prices for cereals and beef of the order of 30 per cent • A phased switch to a direct payment system of farm income support to compensate for the product price reductions. Most farms in Ireland have a cattle enterprise, either alone or in combination with other land using enterprises. Therefore, the reforms of the CAP affected almost all the farms in the country either directly or indirectly. For cattle farmers, the potential consequencee of these changes could be far reaching in terms of their magnitude and their permeation into the details of the husbandry practices of the production system(s) themselves. These changes clearly impact on the economic efficiency of beef systems without necessarily affecting technical efficiency of the systems. The economic optimum cattle production systems would thus be achieved by using the best mix of feed resource costs, carcass values and direct payments. The purpose of the study was to: • determine the economic impact on the cattle enterprise of the switch to: • lower EU prices for beef • lower EU prices for cereals and as a consequence a lower price for concentrate feeds • the direct payment system of income support • identify the economic optimum cattle production system(s) that would arise from these changes • quantify the sensitivity of the economic optimum system to key policy, economic and technical production variables

Inter-Country Cost Comparisons in Beef.

End of Project ReportThe purpose of this study was to: • establish the competitiveness of the Irish beef production systems post the 1992 CAP reform • quantify how Irish beef production costs, and cost components, compare with those for the other EU countries • determine the strengths and weaknesses of the Irish production systems