A HEREFORDSHIRE MEP has welcomed proposals from the European Commission to simplify the Common Agricultural Policy, with fairer penalties on farmers.

Anthea McIntyre, who is from Ross-on-Wye, has backed the Commission's plan for a new "yellow card" system which would see penalties cut for genuine mistakes by farmers.

Currently, penalties can be more than twice the value of any over-declaration.

But, following a report by Conservative agriculture spokesman Richard Ashworth MP, Miss McIntyre says new technology for measuring land area means there can be a simpler penalty set at 1.5 times the value of the over-declared area.

"This should be very good news for farmers," said Miss McIntyre, who is a Conservative member of the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee and herself a small-scale producer.

"Greater simplicity has to be the way forward and I hope this marks the start of a culture change for agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

"When regulation is complicated, then mistakes creep in and the error rate for CAP applications soars."

She said farmers need "light and simple regulation" as well as fair and transparent penalties.

"Some MEPs have been to quick to complicate things in the past. Now is the time to reduce complexity to help our farmers," she added.