There is serious concern that farmers who rely on direct payments could face a financial hit of up to 20% next year, if they don’t secure a place in the Agri Climate Rural Environmental Scheme (ACRES).
That’s according to Tadhg Buckley, chief economist with the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), who appeared on Farmland this week to discuss the oncoming CAP and what it will mean for farmers.
Speaking to Agriland’s Aisling O’Brien, he said that the capacity of ACRES, which will be 30,000 in 2023, is far too low. This he said, combined with the arduous planning and paperwork involved in the application, may leave a number of farmers that are already under income pressure, without a payment.
“Look at a suckler farm income, an agri-environmental scheme can make up to 20% of their income,” he said.
“We cannot have a scenario where the farmer cannot get in [to ACRES] due to the capacity of it and the infrastructure that’s in place, and they are then not able to get the payment they rely on.”
Buckley stated that these farmers that don’t make it into the scheme “will have to be looked after with some sort of balancing or support payment”.
He said that the IFA has highlighted this to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue, who agreed to reflect on it. He said:
“It’s something that will have to be done, otherwise we’re facing a chunk of farmers who could be taking a 20% income hit in 2023, and that can’t be allowed to happen.”
You can watch the full interview with Buckley on the video below.
Speaking about the CAP more generally, Buckley pointed out issues in relation to the eco-scheme, the nature of which will lead to some farmers making gains, while more farmers lose out.
This is due to the fact that the Pillar I funding within the CAP has remained static while the allocation and distribution of the funds are changing according to Buckley.
“When you have a fixed pot of funds and you have a convergence impact, some farmers will gain and others will lose.
“And the issue is that a lot of the losers are in the sectors that are already under pressure from an income perspective, and depend a lot on direct payments, such as the drystock and tillage sectors,” he said.