The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has urged farmers “not to take the foot off the pedal” when it comes to saving fodder this year.
Charlie McConalogue was addressing the fourth meeting of the National Fodder and Food Security Committee meeting today (Wednesday, July 13).
Although recognising the efforts of farm families across the country in making silage and hay for next winter and spring, the minister urged farmers to take advantage of every opportunity to save additional fodder.
He told the meeting that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) had received over 24,000 applications for the Fodder Support Scheme.
The maximum area eligible for payment is 10ha/applicant, with a maximum payment of €1,000 (€100/ha); payments are due to begin in late November.
Applications for the €56 million scheme will remain open until August 2.
Deputy president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA), Denis Drennan voiced his disappointment that dairy farmers had been excluded from the scheme.
Tillage area
Meanwhile, the minister admitted that the land area under tillage had shrunk over the past decade, which is something he wants to reverse.
McConalogue noted that there had been a “good uptake” by farmers of the Tillage Incentive Scheme (TIS) and supports to grow extra protein crops and protein/cereal mix crops this year.
“The response to the TIS, with a budget of €10 million, has been encouraging. It has contributed to an estimated increase of 6% in tillage area or an additional 20,000ha, according to the preliminary Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) 2022 figures,” the minister stated.
“Looking forward, this is something that we need to try and build upon this and try and see how we can continue to grow the area that we have under tillage,” he added.
McConalogue asked members of the National Fodder and Food Security Committee to explore ideas and proposals to further grow the national tillage area in 2023.
“The lesson from this year is really that we have to see where we can produce more domestically and become more self sufficient with regard to grain production. We do have the capacity to do it and we should build on that progress and the appetite that is there,” he said.
The minister also commented that the multi-species sward and red clover initiatives had “worked well” with a total area of 17,000ha approved by DAFM.