EU FARM SUPPORT POLICY: AN ANALYSIS OF DIRECT PAYMENTS IMPLEMENTATION IN SPAIN.

Direct payments are meant to support EU farmers being the main component of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and receiving special attention during the new 2014-2020 reform. First introduced in 1992 after MacSharry reform and known as coupled payments (payments per hectare and animal head), they were designed to support farmers income. In 2003, the decoupled payments focused at encouraging farmers have been introduced in order to enhance the competitiveness and sustainability of the EU agriculture. In Spain, in 2006 the new changes in the Single Payment Scheme (SPS) were introduced, at the beginning according to the regime of partial decoupling. In 2012, the coupled payments were integrated under the SPS or transformed into additional payment. The aim of this paper is to analyze the application of direct payments, as the main support tool for EU farmers based on Spain experience. In this context, the authors have used secondary data provided by the Spanish Agrarian Guarantee Fund (FEGA) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment of Spain (MAGRAMA) concerning the amount of allocated direct payments in Spain, number of beneficiaries and their distribution by territorial aspect. So far, the distribution of direct payments in Spain, similarly to other member states, is unequal, as a result of CAP development, diversity of production and the use of historical references to fix the decoupled payments per farm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]