IFA calls for solutions to 'excessive' catch crop lie-back rules

Irish Farmers Association (IFA) president Tim Cullinan has described the new regulations requiring a grass lie-back beside a catch crop as way too excessive and has called on Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue to quickly introduce practical solutions.

“It’s another solo run by the Department. We’re being told that these new rules are being introduced on the planting and management of catch crops to comply with new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) conditionality measures, but nowhere within the Commission-agreed CAP strategic plan is there any reference to an equivalent lie-back area or the need for it to be in grass,” Cullinan said.

The CAP strategic plan, he said, only outlines the need for an adequate lie-back area and called for clarity and common sense.

"Allocating half the growing area to lie-back that can only be in grass is absolutely way too excessive and will make the growing of catch crops - something which the Department advocates - uneconomic and unworkable for specialist tillage growers,” he said.

Store lamb trade

It will also have a massive impact on the store lamb trade, with farmers who have always purchased store lambs now saying they will not be able to do so because of these new regulations, Cullinan argued.

“Many farmers who applied for ACRES selected the catch crop option too. There are about 22,000ha involved overall and with a sowing deadline of 15 September and all research advocating the benefits of early crop sowing, undoubtedly many will have crops in the ground,” the IFA president said.

These farmers, he added, are now left in limbo trying to figure out how they are going to comply with the ACRES measure, graze these crops and also comply with new unworkable Department regulations.

IFA grain committee chair Kieran McEvoy said he is inundated with queries from farmers who have already planted crops and those wondering what to do next.

Harvest

“There are a lot of tillage farmers who have harvested their main crops now wondering where they stand with the growing of catch or cover crops.

"There are as many again that have catch crops already in the ground, long before these requirements came to light. We need clarity quickly here and workable solutions,” McEvoy said.

IFA sheep committee chair Kevin Comiskey has called for swift action to be taken by the Department.

“There are huge numbers of sheep farmers, particularly those finishing store lambs, who are dependent on catch crops and longstanding collaborative arrangements with tillage farmers. This uncertainty is creating turmoil out there,” he said.