However, I doubt whether modulated set-aside payments are the right answer to the problem.

One big problem for American soy farmers is that they no longer receive set-aside payments to limit production and help support prices.

Set-aside payments will not be given for parks used for cattle or sheep, but the rules encourage use as deer parks.

And above all we would have to agree that as regards the set-aside payments that there is no reason why they should not be equal to aid.

Of course, we pay cereal growers to stop growing crops: we call it 'restructuring aid', like the set-aside payment or the grubbing-up premium.

If we are serious about fundamental CAP reform then an end to set-aside payments has to be at the forefront of any reform procedure.

The list of those who receive set-aside payments in The Sunday Times article reads like the pages of' Burke's Peerage'.

East Anglian surveyors Bidwells have taken up the cudgels on behalf of farmers not only at the timescale for completion of claim forms for area and set-aside payments and ewe and beef premiums, but also at the fines which could result from late or incorrect returns.

In its proposal the European Commission specifies that the measure proposed in the prices package are to be taken along with its previous proposal to change the payment of aids for arable crops, providing for a 7 % reduction, and a reduction in set-aside payments in terms of land that is not set aside.