The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has been urged today (Wednesday, July 26) to ensure that the the “imbalance” in farm incomes is a key consideration when it comes to Budget 2024 decisions.
According to the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), there is a need for “radical change” because of the disparities between farm incomes per hectare across various sectors.
Representatives from the ICSA, including the organisation’s president Dermot Kelleher, met with Minister Charlie McConalogue, today to highlight why “less intensive and lower income” cattle and sheep sectors require support.
Kelleher said: “In 2022 we saw huge disparities between farm incomes per hectare across the various sectors with dairy farm incomes six or seven times higher per hectare than suckler or sheep incomes, and almost five times greater than beef incomes.
“Today we urged the minister to do the right thing by our beef, sheep, and suckler farmers. These are low-income farmers who urgently need budget supports as the challenges around achieving economic sustainability and improving environmental sustainability mount.”
He said that that ICSA wants a sheep payment worth €35/ewe, a beef carbon efficiency payment worth up to €100/head, and additional funding allocated to support the suckler sector through the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP).
ICSA
According to Kelleher sheep prices in 2023 have been lower than in the preceding two years.
“This was despite the massive increases in input costs which sheep farmers could not afford to shoulder alone.
“ICSA is therefore insisting that a key priority for the budget must be to substantially improve the level of support for the sheep sector above the €12/ewe available under the Sheep Improvement Scheme which is not fit for purpose in a financial sense,” he added.
It has also appealed for an emergency package to be put in place to to support a short-term payment of €20/ewe in 2023 and urged the government to “show ambition” to deliver up to €35/ewe, “including support for wool” in Budget 2024.
But Kelleher has also warned that it is not just the sheep sector that is facing an uncertain future.
He said that the challenges facing the beef sector must be acknowledged by putting in place new budgetary supports.
Kelleher said: “The traditional beef finishing operation has been decimated by convergence, but it is a crucial link in delivering the €2.5 billion worth of beef exports, and it is an essential cog in utilising calves not destined for replacement in the dairy and suckler herds.
“Without the beef finishing sector, the dairy herd is simply not sustainable. ICSA has proposed a beef carbon efficiency payment worth up to €100/head for feeding and weighing animals between 12-24 months with the target of early finishing, to a maximum 150 animals.
“We propose that a scheme that includes myostatin testing and animal welfare protocols around weaning and dehorning should be implemented and that this scheme should have funding of €40 million to maintain.
“Crucially, ICSA is insisting that there should be no capping of the suckler herd at an individual farmer basis.”
The organisation has also set out a number of additional funding requirements in its Budget 2024 submission including on animal health and welfare which outlined a €1 million funding proposal for support a strategy to control the deer population.
The ICSA’s budget proposals for 2024 also contains a request for €7 million to be allocated to a bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) programme and for various tax thresholds to be overhauled and current reliefs to be “retained for the long-term”.