The Joint Oireachats Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine has been told that a “worthwhile” agri-environment scheme – delivering up to €15,000 per farmer – is needed for lower-income sectors under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
At a sitting of the committee today (Wednesday, April 14), representatives from the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) said that CAP payments need to be “harnessed” to better support the low-income sectors in cattle, sheep and small to medium-scale tillage.
“We have to look after smaller-scale family farms, particularly those that are struggling. The most obvious way to do that is to create a worthwhile agri-environment scheme that delivers up to €15,000,” ICSA president Dermot Kelleher said.
This would be a significant boost to cattle and sheep farmers in particular those who have never really recovered from the loss of the old REPS scheme.
He argued that the proposed agri-environment scheme should be balanced in favour of low and medium intensity farmers rather than those who avail of a derogation from the Nitrates Directive.
He claimed: “The EU is jumping up and down about the Green Deal but the reality is that the only way to live off land now is to get into dairying or rent to an intensive, expanding dairy farmer.
“If we want a balanced agricultural plan, where Ireland is delivering on the EU’s environmental targets, then the farmer who goes the less intensive, more biodiverse route must be rewarded. Otherwise talk is cheap,” he added.
Referring to the difference in on-farm income usually seen between dairy farmers and beef, suckler and sheep farmers, the ICSA president said that this “might be acceptable if there was a worthwhile agri-environment scheme and an eco-scheme to balance things out”.
Kelleher also outlined the ICSA view that Pillar I payments under CAP should be capped at €60,000 and that hired-in farm labour “should not be used as a way of circumventing this”.
“We don’t like capping for the fun of it but we have to be real. It is better to cap the payments than have even more severe cuts on ordinary family farms, which are likely, due to convergence and the limited budget,” he argued.
He went on to say that the downgrading of land eligibility should be opposed, saying: “The red-lining of land parcels needs to be binned in the future CAP. It makes no sense at a time when the EU and others are calling for rewilding; buffer zones; more habitats; and more hedges and trees.”