DEAR EDITOR,

In the context of the next round of CAP negotiations, perhaps it would be worthwhile to look at the current structure of food producers in this country.

For a start, we should stop describing smaller, part-time farmers as non-viable and started looking at the people running them as rural entrepreneurs.

The problem seems to be how viability is measured.

If a farm cannot, on its own, provide a full family income, it can be classified as non-viable.

But why should farming provide 100% of a household’s income to be considered successful?

For many rural families, the future may be a basket of incomes – farming combined with employment, contracting, forestry, tourism, a small business or other rural enterprises. The farm may provide €10,000 or €15,000 of that basket. That does not make it a failed farm. Combined with other income, it may form part of a very secure and sustainable rural household.

We hear constantly about farm succession and the difficulty of attracting the next generation.

Telling a young person that a 30 or 40 acre holding is non-viable is hardly encouraging.

Telling them that the farm can be one part of a diverse rural business and income portfolio is a very different proposition.

Agricultural policy should not simply ask how we can make small farmers bigger.

Instead we should ask how can policy help rural entrepreneurs build a basket of incomes with farming at its heart?

That could be one of the best ways of keeping families, economic activity and farming itself in rural Ireland.