Following confirmation last week of the locations where farmers will be eligible for up to €10,000 in the new Agri-Environment Climate Measure (AECM), one farm organisation has said it is “hugely disappointing” that so many parts will miss out.
Last week the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine released a map of the parts of the country where farmers will be eligible for the upper payment rate under the AECM from next year.
In these areas, farmers will take part in ‘cooperation projects’ (CPs) with other farmers. Farmers who cannot avail of this measure – who will be located in the majority of country – will only be able to attain a maximum payment of €7,000, with an expected average payment of around €5,000.
The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) has said it is “hugely disappointing that vast swathes of the country have been excluded from the co-operation measure” of the new scheme.
ICSA rural development chairperson, Tim Farrell, noted: “Eligible areas fall predominately in counties along the western seaboard – while the midlands, northwest, and most of Leinster and Munster have been left out.
“Farmers in these areas can only hope to get a maximum payment of €7,000, as opposed to the €10,000 that would otherwise be on offer,” he highlighted.
Farrell argued that, while most farmers will see a modest increase in payments through the new scheme – which will replace the Green, Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme – these gains are likely to be erased through “massive inflation in input costs”.
“This is why during the CAP negotiations ICSA argued very strongly for an agri-environment scheme that would deliver a maximum payment of €15,000.
“This would have afforded farmers the means to deliver on ambitious targets and reward them for their contribution, in a way that a likely average payment of just €5,000 cannot,” he added.
“It must also be remembered that farmers losing out on the AECM are also the ones who lost out on convergence,” Farrell noted.
“The penny must drop that farmers cannot be continuously expected to do more on climate change and biodiversity without adequate levels of financial support and reward,” he said.