The benefits and drawbacks of flattening farm payments was a key focus of CAP consultation meetings held by the Department of Agriculture last week.

There were diverging views on the policy.

The majority of farmers at the meeting in Sligo supported the further movement of payments, but at the meeting in Portlaoise there was strong opposition to it.

The European Commission has proposed that by 2026, all entitlements reach a value of 75% of the national average, currently €265/ha. The European Parliament agriculture committee has proposed full flattening by 2026.

Speaking at the meetings, Paul Savage, assistant general secretary in the Department of Agriculture, said approximately €100m had so far moved between farmers due to flattening.

Savage said if there had been full flattening, €280m would have moved from those with higher entitlement values to those with lower ones.

Decimated incomes

In Sligo, farmers called for CAP money to go back to farmers. They said the incomes of suckler and sheep farmers had been decimated.

One farmer said: “It’s gross hypocrisy to suggest farmers need to do more. We can’t afford to do more. We need all current schemes fully funded.”

Another called for farmers in the west to be rewarded with a properly funded environmental scheme. Farmers called out the fact that funding to the environmental schemes REPS 1, 2, 3 and 4, AEOS and GLAS had been progressively reduced, yet the hoops the farmers had to jump through were greater.

In Portlaoise, convergence was branded “a dirty word”. Farmers said it was taking money from full-time farmers and leaving them less viable.

One farmer said it should be called “the rob Peter to pay Paul scheme” and that the same pot of money was being pushed around. Another farmer said the money was being moved to “hobby farmers and non-productive land”.

Under the CAP proposals support must only go to “genuine farmers”.

However, as of yet, there is no definition for a genuine farmer.

Savage said the Department understood farm incomes were under pressure and it was fighting to maintain the CAP budget at a European level.

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