Questions have been raised on the timeline for the delivery of a scheme to support the ‘forgotten farmers’ after the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue promised one would be established last year.

Speaking at Macra’s annual conference in October 2022, the minister said he wanted to deliver a support scheme for this cohort in a number of weeks, according to the president of the young farmers organisation, John Keane.

“Weeks was the word he used, we’re now in the new year, three months later and nothing has changed,” he told Agriland.

Keane said that following the minister’s commitment to this at the conference, he had numerous phonecalls from forgotten farmers “as there was excitement that this was going to be addressed”.

“The same farmers have been back onto me three and four times since looking for an update. They were expecting something to happen and it hasn’t.

“We sent in a request for more information as far back as November and we contacted again in December and we haven’t got anything since. The lack of information is shocking to be honest,” Keane added.

Agriland submitted numerous requests to the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) for an update on the development of the scheme, however it refused to provide clarification on whether or not there has been a delay and why this may be.

Sinn Féin TD Matt Carthy questioned Minister McConalogue in December on why issues around the scheme’s rollout had not yet been resolved and what the department’s proposals for the scheme are.

Minister McConalogue said that there is “no resistance” to the development of a plan and that his department had formed “a preliminary outline of a proposal to provide support to this group”.

However, he added that he was still engaging with the finance minister in relation to the funding required for it.

Criteria for Forgotten Farmers scheme

At last year’s Macra conference, Minister McConalogue said the new scheme will support farmers who:

  • Did not benefit from installation aid;
  • Were aged no more than 40 in 2015;
  • Had required the level 6 qualification by 2015;
  • Had submitted a Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) application in 2015;
  • Did not benefit previously under the national reserve in BPS or Single Payment Scheme (SPS) under any category;
  • Had set up as head of agricultural holding before 2008.

However, Keane told Agriland that he has “yet to find a forgotten farmer that has contacted me to say that they will meet any one of those six criteria”.

“We’ve asked the department how they came up with those criteria and the numbers that would qualify under the reach of those.

“We feel that there needs to be a better scheme designed because having a scheme where nobody will qualify is not much use to those who have been forgotten now for 15 years,” he concluded.