Farmers, especially suckler and beef farmers, are at a crossroads over whether to stay producing food, according to independent TD for Kerry Danny Healy-Rae.
Speaking in the Dáíl last week, the Kerry TD highlighted that many farmers are “losing money”, highlighting that it must be remembered that “farmers are not getting payments from Europe as a gift or present”.
Deputy Healy-Rae reminded TDs that direct payments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) “are supposed to compensate farmers for not being paid properly and in order for that food to be sold more cheaply to the consumers of Europe”.
We must remember that farmers are entitled to payments because they are not being paid properly for the food they produce. If farmers were being paid properly, they would not be looking for payments.
Describing farmers as “honest and hard-working people who deserve to be paid properly”, the deputy warned of mooted cuts to CAP and direct payments.
Deputy Healy-Rae warned that the next government, regardless of its composition, “cannot accept a cut during the negotiations because that would sound the death knell for rural Ireland”.
“It has been said that funding for Pillar I could drop by 10%.
We cannot accept that. If Ireland has to pay more into the fund, surely we should insist that we get more out of it.
Turning to proposed cuts to Pillar II funding, the Kerry TD warned that any reductions “will greatly affect all of the payments coming into the poorer and more deprived areas in rural Ireland”.
“Many young farmers cannot survive on the bit of land they have but they do want to keep the door open on their farms.
“It cannot all be about planting forestry and closing down rural Ireland. If we are worth our salt at all, we cannot stand for that. I ask whomever is in the next Government not to stand for that.
There is also talk that, outside of designated areas, regulations and state penalties [may] apply to carbon-rich soils if farmers do simple things like draining the land to improve it.
“We cannot allow that to happen. Farmers need to utilise the little bits of land they have and produce as much as they can if they are to survive.
“When we discuss the levelling off of payment schemes, especially for sheep farmers, it must be remembered that farmers in the west need to get more attention than the farmers on the eastern side of the country – who have all the options,” the TD concluded.