The Forgotten Farmers, a group of farmers who are under 40 and have been farming for more than five years, will continue their fight to have their low-value entitlements increased.

At a meeting in Athlone last Sunday, Kenneth O’Brien, head of the group, said it is unfair that a young farmer who has just started can get €310/ha from the National Reserve and Young Farmers Scheme, while a young farmer of the same age, who has been farming over five years is locked out completely.

More importantly, he got the full commitment from the farm organisations involved to work together to provide a solution for these young farmers.

It helped that the three IFA presidential candidates, as well as many politicians involved in the general election, were all present to give their support.

The meeting, attended by 150 people, came a year after more than 400 farmers met on the same issues.

Since then, it was been identified that there are over 3,000 farmers in the category and €10m to €12m would be needed to bring them up to the national entitlement average.

One group of young farmers, who started farming in 2008/2009 after the installation aid was cut, have had success in accessing the National Reserve under a special disadvantage.

However, the remaining farmers have seen pleas to include them rejected by the Department.

As the meeting went on, it became obvious that the solution to increase entitlements rested in the National Reserve and, in particular, under the heading of force majeure and special disadvantage.

The other issue of increasing the grant aid to 60% for all farmers under 40 is firmly under pillar II.

Adviser James Fitzgerald said the difficulty pointed out by the Department at a meeting last year was the diverse range of circumstances.

“The Department has told us that we must come up with sub headings that could fit the legislation for these categories,” he said.

Trevor Kelly from Castlerea told his story of how he started farming in 2005 and bought land to be excluded from installation aid and any access to entitlements at the time.

“I have €300,000 borrowed but only have entitlements worth €126/ha, many of which I purchased,” he said.