A report has claimed that unmanned drones might be used to detect breaches of CAP subsidy rules: Drones
Satellites have been used in the past to detect attempts at fraud and they have had their successes as when a farmer tried to claim for fields located in the mid-Atlantic. However, their effectiveness can be affected by weather conditions and they do not work well in mountainous terrain.
7 comments:
What happens to these subsidies in genuine cases of problems such as flooding, adverse weather conditions or damage by wild animals?
The subsidies would not in principle be affected by that as they are in principle based on the area farmed and events of that kind would not serve as a disqualification. There is separate provision by the EU for major natural disasters.
So major natural disasters are covered but not sustained damage by animals. In that case that would be considered not meeting the landscape protection criteria?
I am trying to understand why farmers who are struggling with increasing wild boar numbers in Latvia are also losing subsidy payments. I am trying to understand if this is an EU problem with the way subsidy payments are handled or a local interpretation of the rules. Latvian land is not traditionally fenced and so poses a huge cost burden on the famers to undertake protection.
I doubt whether it would fall under the landscape protection criteria. I do not think that the EU would regard it as an illegitimate state aid if the Latvian Government spent money on tackling this problem. I do not understand why the farmers should actually lose subsidy payments.
Well hopefully one day sense will prevail and that very question will go into my Masters thesis in stark black and white. I just wanted to know if there was any legitimate reason why the inspectors make that kind of decision, why they make a difficult living even more difficult.
Also thank you for taking the time to comment
Apart from the CAP issue per-se), does this not seem a bit, er, spooky, that unmanned drones are going to be used this way? Ok, lord knows we definitely want to make sure that CAP funds are used properly, but it just seems very "big-brotherish" to have drones doing this work. If drones are used this way, what other ways will they be used in the civilian world? I understand that this is not a civil liberties or political blog, but it does make one think. Of course, the best way to solve this whole issue is just to eliminate CAP!
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