On GLAS and the Rural Development Programme

Simon Coveney: “Farmers want to see the new Rural Development Programme (RDP) benefit them as soon as possible. The new TAMS will open in January. For GLAS, it will take quite a bit of time to get all of the applications in, process them and get payments out. We’re talking about 25-30,000 applications, and we only have 400 non-Teagasc advisors in the country.”

Pat O’Toole: “Are the private consultants going to have to carry that load?”

Simon Coveney: “Teagasc may well have to get involved here, if it’s necessary.”

Pat O’Toole: “Farmers are looking to two key dates; the date that the scheme opens for applications and the start date for participation in GLAS. When are they likely to be?”

Simon Coveney: “What we’re hoping to do is open the scheme in December, but we can’t open it until the Commission approve our RDP programme. It’s then certainly going to take five months for all the applications to come in, and I think the farming organisations would acknowledge this.

We can’t then open the scheme until we decide who is eligible. If we get 33,000 applications and we only let in 30,000 farmers, well then we have to decide who qualifies.

The scheme may end up starting in maybe September, so really farmers will be getting payments in November, December and into January 2016.

I said to the farming organisations ‘we can take in 7-8,000 farmers early in the year, with the scheme up and running early and payments early, or we can take in 25-30,000 farmers but it will take longer, now which do you want?’ And I can tell you they were quite clear on what their preference was. The good news is, once all the farmers are in, they’re in for five years.”

On the reshuffle

Simon Coveney: “The Departments of Environment and Agriculture need to work closely together on issues such as climate change, emissions management, sustainability, protecting waterways, protecting SAC’s, looking for derogations for slurry spreading restrictions.

Phil Hogan and myself had a very good working relationship that resulted from a shared practical understanding of farming. Alan Kelly and I already have a good working relationship. He comes from Co Tipperary, a big agricultural county. I would be very surprised if he didn’t understand the needs of agriculture.

I hope Phil Hogan will now be the Agricultural commissioner, there’s a good chance that he will be. Ireland is going after that commisonership, certainly I’m using every contact I have to advocate Phil Hogan for that job.”

Pat O’Toole: “Our credit in agriculture must be good after brokering the CAP reform deal.”

Simon Coveney: “Absolutely, it was during the Irish presidency that Ireland brokered the CAP deal. We also led the necessary change to CAP proposals that make them more commercially driven, to focus on supports being for food production and active farmers as opposed to land ownership.

The Irish mindset in relation to agriculture is one of ambition, expansion and maximising the potential return from the marketplace. That’s the kind of approach that Europe needs at the moment, as opposed to an approach of some kind of land stewardship, which some countries seem to view agriculture as.

Having said that, I have a very good relationship with Dacian Ciolos but I do have an ambition for Ireland that we take a leadership role in agriculture in Europe.

In addition, myself and Phil Hogan were the ones who drove the Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas (CEDRA) report.

Farming is the heartbeat of rural ireland but there are other elements that this Government needs to focus on as well.

These include a retail strategy in small rural towns, a roads and rural transport policy, rural schools, a Garda presence. There is our inland fisheries and seafood sector, which has grown by over 30% in the last three years. The CEDRA report is all about building a rural economy. Ann Phelan (the new Minister of State) is charged with implementing this plan and is now based in my department. We have made her feel welcome and she will be part of the story from now on.”

Pat O’Toole: “You now have the added responsibility of being Minister for Defence.”

Simon Coveney: “Yes, it’s an honour and a challenge. My two jobs are unrelated, with separate departments. I’m just going to have to work harder. I can assure farmers that, if anything, they will see even more of me as I will need to demonstrate my commitment to them. My focus is unchanged.”

On the cattle sector

Simon Coveney: “Beef is the most important sector for Irish farmers, almost 100,000 of our 130,000 farmers have cattle. Recent prices have felt poor, even though they are around the five year average, following the record prices of last year. I am working for legal recognition for farmer supplier groups – we have seen producer co-ops benefit dairy farmers over time.”

Pat O’Toole: “Are you in favour of compulsory reporting of kill figures for each processing outlet?”

Simon Coveney: “Farmers are adamant that factories shouldn’t get information about how many cattle are on their farms. I think they’re right. I’m not sure we should be giving the exact throughput figures from individual factories either.

Don’t forget, factories compete with each other aggressively as well. We will give as much information as we can give, without compromising either farmers or companies in terms of commercially sensitive information.

People are looking for a quick effect from the beef forum. I understand that, but it should be remembered that this is the first ever forum to involve all sides of the industry. There have only been two meetings, two more are planned. In the meantime, I am meeting all the various stakeholders and working to put better structures in place. For example, tomorrow (Wednesday), I am meeting Northern Ireland’s Agriculture Minister, Michelle O’Neill, to discuss the nomad cattle issue.

There needs to be a much more transparent relationship between farmers and processors in terms of price and of specification, I think we’ll see progress in the autumn.

I am confident that Ireland will be the first EU country to have beef in the US.”

New markets

“I have led trade missions to China, Japan, the USA, the Gulf states, and North Africa. We had planned to go to Russia before the current political climate set in. I intend to go back to China and to the USA.

I hope to open up the US lamb market, which was closed because of scrapie, as we have opened the beef market.”

Price volatility

Simon Coveney: “I have a deep concern that we need measures to assist farmers to cope with price volatility. The pig sector is a prime example where farmers have learned to survive periods of poor prices and cash in on good prices.”

Pat O’Toole: “Is it not the case that most pig farms are limited companies? It’s harder for sole trader farmers to manage against volatility.”

Simon Coveney: “That is true. IFA have proposed a scheme where farmers can save money in good years, free-of-tax, and then reinvest it in the farm when prices are poor. We will look closely at that.”

Commonage framework implementation

Simon Coveney: “Commonage farmers are prioritised under GLAS. They will receive priority access and get a payment of up to €8,000, a 60% increase on other farmers. All we are asking them to do is to talk to a planner, not necessarily their fellow commonage owners. Only half the farmers on a commonage need to participate, it’s not that high a threshold.

There will be new recommended stocking rates.

We acknowledge that restocking is necessary in some areas that have been undergrazed, and we understand that this cannot happen overnight. During CAP reform, every farm organisation, without exception, asked me to prioritise active farmers.

This applies to hill and commonage farmers as well, and the package of measures, with increased single payments, with DAS, with the grassland scheme being decoupled, and with priority access to GLAS, should encourage and protect. I have also increased payments to island farmers.”

On land eligibility

Simon Coveney: “I’d love to tell farmers what they want to hear, that we’ve done nothing wrong, that this will go way, but it won’t. France have been fined over €1bn, Britain €400m, Italy has been hit with a massive fine.

If payments have been made on land that we now know is ineligible, then the Commission have to get their money back. Less than 6% of farmers have any issue, and a only fraction of 1% have a really big issue.

The appeals mechanism has a 40% success rate, with a further appeal process outside the department. I can’t simply stick my head in the sand and think this is going to go away. We will work with those farmers to help them make retrospective repayments in a way that is reasonable.

If we don’t do this, the Commission will impose a fine of €180m on us, a straight 2% across the board fine. I have not and will not accept this figure, we are in an arbitration process, I cannot let such a fine affect my department’s budget.

The only way we will win this argument is by persuading the Commission that we have done everything possible to be as accurate as we can.

Internally, with farming organisations we will look at how much farmers will contribute, and how much the Department will pay. To their credit, the farming organisations understand that there is no easy answer.”