“Frustrated” and “disheartened” were the phrases used by chair of the Women in Agriculture Stakeholder Group (WASG) Mona O’Donoghue Concannon as she described the restrictive rules for the new Women Farmers Capital Investment Scheme (WFCIS).

Under the scheme’s terms, women farmers must have been part of the farming enterprise in 2022, either through sole ownership, a registered farm partnership or a partner in a limited company.

Women who were not listed in 2022 can avail of the WFCIS if they complete an agricultural qualification (Green Cert).

“The WASG submitted their proposal so that we would include women in agriculture that aren’t being recognised at the moment and unfortunately it hasn’t happened.

“The women that we were trying to target and get on to herd numbers are now the women being discriminated against,” O’Donoghue Concannon told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“We had a meeting with the Department officials three weeks prior to the [women TAMS] webinar (Monday 19 June), and the terms and conditions weren’t available to us on that day. We were told that we would be given them, that they hadn’t completed them, but we were only given them the same night as everyone else,” she stated. The WASG had suggested to Department of Agriculture officials that an intensive 10-day course, spread out over 10 months, in lieu of the agricultural requirement, be introduced which would cover all aspects covered in the Green Cert.

The group argues that prior learning, and the undervalued experience of these women, is not being taken in to account, as well as the financial and time pressure that enrolling in a Green Cert course would place on them.

The requirement for women to apply under the WFCIS when both a woman farmer and a young farmer are applying under a partnership arrangement, in order to access the full 60% grant up to the maximum ceiling of €160,000 is also “baffling”, the WASG chair said.