Macra has expressed its disappointment that the ‘forgotten farmers’ were overlooked once again for supports under Budget 2023.
The group is a combination of farmers who lost out following the removal of young farmer supports, such as installation aid, due to cuts in public expenditure by the government following the last recession.
Macra national president, John Keane said that Budget 2023 did not correct the failings of previous governments in addressing the plight of this group of farmers, which is estimated to be in the region of 3,500.
“It is now more than fourteen years since some of these farmers started out in their farming careers, and it is simply not good enough that the mistakes around the removal of supports have not been rectified.
“Macra has continually lobbied on behalf of these forgotten farmers to seek the support which they fairly deserve,” he said.
“In the programme for government it states in black and white that the government will seek to resolve, under the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the issue of support for the category of farmers known as ‘forgotten farmers’.
“When the support was not detailed under the newly-submitted CAP Strategic Plan (CSP), the department of agriculture [Food and the Marine] citied reasons around qualifying criteria and meeting objectives as barriers, but assured Macra that this cohort of farmers were not forgotten.
“We lobbied extensively on this issue in the lead up to Budget 2023 as it now seems the support is going to need to come from the National Exchequer,” the Macra president said.
In December 2021, it was reported that the farmers would receive a once-off payment of €5,000 from the Exchequer, however that payment has yet to materialise.
“These ‘forgotten farmers’ can wait no longer with rising input and energy costs and many investments having been put on hold with the commitments by the Minister [Charlie McConalogue], the time to deliver meaningful supports for these farmers is now,” Keane concluded.