IS a reformed Common Agricultural Policy a brave new world or a fool's paradise? asked NFU president Ben Gill when he addressed Herefordshire members at The Three Counties Hotel, Hereford, on Thursday.

He saw the process as an opportunity to free things up, cut bureacracy surrounding the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) and get back to being farmers.

He said: ''I have written to European Agricultural Commissioner Franz Fischler exhorting him not to be beguilded by what appears to be a compromise of partial decoupling but what would be a disaster to us all.''

Under Dr Fischler's original plans for decoupling, subsidies linked to production of arable crops, beef and sheep would be replaced by a single payment not linked to production next year.

The dairy sector would be decoupled at a later date.

But while the NFU and UK ministers have been pushing for full decoupling this was proving too radical for some of the present 15 European Union member states, including France.

Ben Gill added: ''All we can be sure is that there will be much last-minute horse trading leading up to this month's deadline for a decision.''

The front-runner for June 11 decision by EU Ministers is believed to be vertical decoupling, beginning with one commodity, probably arable, and moving onto beef, sheep and eventually the dairy sector. The closer it brings implementation dates to 2006, the easier it will be for France to accept the changes.

When asked from the floor are CAP reforms the start of the end of subsidies as we know it, he replied: ''There will never be a stage, in our lifetime, that farming will be without some transfer of funds from Government to rural communities to compensate for the added costs of operating a business in the countryside.''

NFU Herefordshire chairman Paul Thomas said: ''We in Herefordshire support NFU efforts to seek the greater good and find common ground through a workable system.''