Farmers are being urged to complete a Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine questionnaire on the Common Agricultural Policy Strategic Plan (CSP) before the closing of the consultation period tomorrow (Friday, September 3).
The Irish Beef and Lamb Association (IBLA) is calling for “every farmer in the country to make his or her own personal contribution to the CAP consultative process”.
“In the past, farmers have allowed others to speak for them as they did not have access to the people that agreed farm policy on their behalves,” the IBLA said in a statement.
“This is perhaps why farmers ended up with the current CAP model that IBLA considers to be very unfair.”
“Those with most influence have always looked after and made submissions on behalf of the strongest within their ranks and the smaller family farmers were sold out,” the organisation claims.
“It’s now time for each and every small family farmer to make a submission directly to the department,” the IBLA argued.
According to the association, the fact that this questionnaire exists has not been adequately highlighted by other farm organisations to their members.
“IBLA considers it very disappointing that this official department CAP questionnaire has not been widely shared or highlighted by the other farm organisations so that individual farmers can have their voices heard.
“The most important issues that opinions are being sought on relate to capping the max payment that any one farmer will receive; the convergence rate for transfer value from high-value entitlements to low-value entitlements; and front loading of payments to small and medium-size family farms,” the IBLA explained.
The questionnaire can be viewed here.