Minister of State with responsibility for heritage Malcolm Noonan has been called on to ensure farmers and landowners are “properly reimbursed” if their farms include designated land.
The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) met with the minister yesterday evening (Tuesday, April 26) on the issue, and asked the minister to provide a direct payment to these farmers to compensate them for special areas of conservation (SACs) and special protected areas (SPAs) on their land.
The meeting yesterday was attended by farmer represenativatives and other industry stakeholders.
The INHFA told Minister Noonan that some 30,000 farmers are impacted by having designated land on their holdings.
“These farmers are curtailed in their farming activity through the 38 ‘activities requiring consent’ (ARCs) and this burden must be recognised,” INHFA president Vincent Roddy told the minister.
He outlined that, under the ARCs, farmers are “required to consider on a daily basis how any proposed farming action could be at variance with any of these activities”.
“As these ARCs include normal farming activity such as fencing, topping and spreading lime and chemical or organic fertiliser, it is now quite clear that there is a transactional cost to farming designated lands,” Roddy added.
The INHFA highlighted that, since the introduction of these designations, the impacted farmers have had to rely on agri-environment schemes for compensation.
“This doesn’t recognise the financial burden imposed through the designation, with farmers paid for the management of the designated sites through a payment process that has fallen from €242/ha under REPS [Rural Environment Protection Scheme] to €79/ha under GLAS [Green, Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme],” Roddy noted.
He added: “As these agri-environment schemes had a maximum payment level irrespective of whether your land was designated or not, then the merit of only paying farmers through this process is very questionable.”
The INHFA is also calling for action to be taken on the devaluation of land due to designated status.
Specifically, the farm organisation said that it is looking for the establishment of a state-backed fund to cover any loss incurred as a result of designation where land has been sold.
Under such a fund, the INHFA explained, farmers or landowners would be paid the difference in value between designated land they sell and the actual value of similar non-designated land in the area.
“This is the very least any landowner should expect if their land has been earmarked to deliver a public good through the process of SAC or SPA designation,” Roddy argued.