The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has been told that it “cannot continue to avoid the seriousness” of later dates for some farm payments.
In March, the department wrote to farmers confirming new payment dates under the Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) Scheme and the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS), which replaces the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
The ANC Scheme payments will be pushed back by about a month to October 17, this year, while the BISS payments will be made from October 24, a delay of around two weeks compared to previous years.
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has said that it wants this issue to be “front and centre” in its talks with the department.
Speaking this morning (Friday, July 21), following the most recent meeting of the Farmers’ Charter group, ICMSA deputy president Denis Drennan said that farmers are “unconvinced that the department understands exactly how frustrating it is to have payment dates changed unilaterally”.
The ICMSA repeated its call for the department to bring forward payments in 2023 and to commit to further improvements in 2024, given the “importance of these payments to farmers’ incomes”.
“The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine [Charlie McConalogue] met farm organisations in April and assured us that measures would be taken to address our concerns. [We] accept that a number of other issues have been addressed, but no progress can be noted on the substantive issue of payment dates,” Drennan commented.
“Farmers have moved past unquestioning acceptance of airy assurances on these matters.”
He added: “We cannot accept as progress a vague commitment on the part of the minister’s officials to a review [of the payment dates issue] in 2024 which, frankly, commits the minister to absolutely nothing.”
The ICMSA deputy president said that specific payment dates included in the latest Farmer’s Charter are required, with “at least the same basis of guarantee that we had with the previous charter”.
According to Drennan, there are also “problems” arising with other schemes, including the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) and the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS), for which farmers could “pay a heavy price” later this year.
“It is absolutely up to the department to get its house in order as soon as possible and get these payments processed in line with previous years.
“Just as an example of how these payments affect the whole picture, we know that cattle prices improve when the payments are made and the September and October period is critical for farmers who sell weanlings in particular,” Drennan added.
He commented: “That’s just one aspect of why we need concrete commitments on dates and then delivery on those commitments.”
Despite the concerns from the ICMSA, Minister McConalogue seems to have already poured cold water on any chance of 2023 payment dates being brough back in line with previous years.
Speaking at the annual general meeting (AGM) of the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) earlier this month, the minister effectively ruled out undoing the changes to the 2023 dates, but did say that the issue would be revisited next year, with the potential for a return to the previously normal dates.
Minister McConalogue told the INHFA AGM that he and the department had worked to find the “best timeframe that could be done”.