The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) has called on Government to deliver a €35/ewe payment for sheep farmers in Budget 2024.

The current rate of support of €12/ewe under the Sheep Improvement Scheme is “totally inadequate”, it said.

The ICSA has also proposed an emergency package to support a short-term payment of €20/ewe in 2023.

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“However, the Government must show ambition to deliver up to €35/ewe, including support for wool, by 2027 and this must commence with Budget 2024,” it stated in its pre-budget submission.

A key proposal is a payment for shearing and the correct management of wool fleeces.

“There is a vicious circle that wool is worth so little that there is no logical incentive to roll the fleeces correctly and yet the poor presentation of wool is a barrier to developing markets,” it said.

Beef

The ICSA has said in its submission that there must be “no capping of the suckler herd at an individual farmer basis” and called for a new €40m scheme which would include myostatin testing, animal welfare protocols around weaning and dehorning. This scheme would be to maintain the level of support under the BEEP scheme, it added.

It is also seeking a “beef carbon efficiency payment” worth up to €100/head for feeding and weighing animals between 12 and 24 months, with the target of early finishing, up to a maximum of 150 animals.

Stamp duty

The farm body has also called for consanguinity relief to be extended for another three years beyond the end of 2023.

On the stamp duty rates for agricultural land, it has said that the stamp duty increases on commercial property transactions are “extremely punitive” for farming in terms of land purchase.

It said that the first €500,000 of any commercial property transaction involving farmland should be subject to a stamp duty of 2% and the 7.5% should apply on amounts above that.