Farmer frustration was a recurring theme to a meeting this week held by the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) in relation to the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – with eco-schemes and convergence in particular highlighted as grievances among farmers.
On Wednesday evening (May 19) the IFA held its regional online meeting for South Leinster.
Chaired by South Leinster regional chairman Francie Gorman, the meeting included talks from IFA president Tim Cullinan and a presentation outlining the organisation’s six key CAP demands, presented by IFA chief economist Tadhg Buckley.
During the question and answer session afterwards, one farmer on the call, John Keena from Co. Offaly, voiced clear frustration over the direction of CAP reform, stating:
“On the eco-scheme – it’s absolutely unbelievable that they’re able to take money out of Pillar I and expect us then to claim it back in another scheme.
“Pillar I money has been already [reduced] from what it was; Pillar II is up but Pillar II money is not in the farmer’s hands – it’s getting diluted and it’s not coming back to the farmers.
“Convergence is the real big hitter at the moment in the sense that it has really, really affected the likes of what I’m going to take from CAP.
“For people like myself who went out and bought stock and earned the money, I feel very sore and bitter to be giving it to guys who have done nothing.
“Some people were in hard luck and unfortunate, maybe they were in different aspects of farming at the time, but for me I’m taking a massive hit as a person who went out and done all the hard yards as far as I’m concerned.
“I’ve built up a good Single Farm Payment but no one gave me anything for nothing. So convergence is definitely hitting me,” he added.
Referencing Verona Murphy’s comments on the matter in the Dáil earlier this year, he said: “How would anyone else like convergence to be brought on them in any other sector? I don’t think they would.”
Another farmer, James Murphy, added: “I’m resigned to the best we can do is minimise the damage on convergence.
“I still can’t get my head around the fact that, under this proposed eco-scheme, I’m going to face another layer of convergence.
“I still can’t figure out why we can’t take a stronger position on the eco-scheme and state plain and simple that IFA can never support an environmental scheme – which is what it is – that imposes a financial penalty on any farmer who is fully compliant with the scheme.
“Surely we can dig in harder on this one,” he said.
In response to the farmers, Buckley said:
How we got here is that the environmental agenda that has effectively hijacked policy making in Europe.
“To put this in context, there would be a huge amount of people at European level who think that CAP isn’t going far enough this time around, believe it or not.
“The second reason we are where we are is the level of funding being set aside. So the environmental ambition, fair enough. If they want to increase the level of environmental ambition, that’s fine – but put the level of funding with it.
“Why not put 30% more monies in Pillar I and then say we’re going to put in eco-schemes? Guys will still be upset and mightn’t like it but to come on and do what they’ve done is the biggest issue here.
The number one problem here is the lack of funding – everything else stems from that. How we got to a position where greening went to eco-schemes is the view at European level didn’t do what it set out to do; that was the key problem.
Pointing also to the delay that CAP has faced, with proposals originally put forward in 2018, he said: “Now we’re in 2021 where you’ve an increased environmental ambition again and you’ve an EU vice president Franz Timmermans who is extremely hot on the environmental side.
“In terms of the eco-scheme, in any dealings we’ve had we’ve made it crystal clear that farmers have to be able to get back what they’re going to lose by eco-schemes. That has been a core call for us the whole time along. That is a key objective of ours.”