The changing nature of EU support for agriculture is illustrated below. The colour classification relates to the WTO interpretation of the support and how this is continuing to develop in response to WTO rules.

Changes in the structure of agricultural support, commencing 2005 will mean far reaching changes for British and European agriculture. In practice this means that farm support will no longer be linked to production. Support will be independent of the number of livestock carried or the hectares of a crop grown and made through a Single Farm Payment (SFP) based on the historic production claims of the years 2000 - 2002 inclusive.

Throughout the EU, the detailed application of the change varies both in manner and timing such that no two countries will have identical support arrangements. In the UK the change to a fully decoupled payment will be phased in over 7 years with the SFP being based initially on the historic entitlement from the 2000 - 2002 period. By the end of the 7 year period the historic element will have been full replaced by a regional average and thus be truly decoupled.

EU members are also afforded some flexibility to "modulate" decoupled payments, channelling a proportion into rural development and agri-environmental schemes thus further "greening" the overall nature of the support.

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