All the major parties have now published detailed manifestos, but how do they compare? Let’s take a close look at the commitments made to farming.

We first look at what Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and Independent Ireland are promising if elected to Government. It’s easy to compare the offerings when it comes to coupled payments.

Sucklers first – the sector with the lowest average incomes of all. Fine Gael and Independent Ireland both commit to increasing the current payment of €230/cow up to €300/cow. Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin go further, both pledging €350/cow.

Both Fine Gael and Independent Ireland say they will widen the base of farmers participating and cows being paid on, and remove red tape from accessing payments.

For sheep, Fine Gael and Independent Ireland will increase the current €25/ewe to €30, Fianna Fáil will go to €35/ewe, while Sinn Féin is committing to €40. Again, the first two parties speak of easing access to payments from the scheme or schemes involved.

Tillage

The figures are truly eye-watering when it comes to the tillage sector. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael both commit to €60m/year, and that is on top of existing schemes, like the protein payment and the Straw Incorporation Measure.

Sinn Féin endorses the recommendations of the Food Vision Tillage Group, with Martin Kenny saying in the Irish Farmers Journal debate last Thursday that “€60m mightn’t be enough, it could take €70-75m a year”. Independent Ireland goes further again, pledging to pay €300 for every hectare of all tillage crops on top of the current basic payment farmers receive. That would have cost €110m this year if in place.

All parties featured committed to working to retain the nitrates derogation, and to oppose the Mercosur trade deal. While all have committed to some form of farm retirement scheme, Independent Ireland is the only party which has put a budget in place, €300m a year.

It also pledges to increase TAMS funding by an extra €60m, and to remove the restrictions on TAMS support for slurry storage construction for derogation farmers. Michael Fitzmaurice has accused the other parties of copying Independent Ireland’s policies.

“We rolled out our manifesto about six weeks ago, and everyone else is taking their lead from that,” he said, describing it as “copy and paste politics”.

Green route differs

The Green Party takes a different approach. It does not focus on coupled payment specifics, but pledges to incentivise sectors “such as tillage and organics”.

The intention is to increase organics to €15% by 2035. Controversially, this is to be funded “by scaling down the Areas of Natural Constraint Scheme (ANC)”. The Greens will promote dry manure systems for housed stock, and will put a plan in place “for the eventuality of the Nitrates Directive coming to an end”, although Pippa Hackett and Roderic O’Gorman have committed to fighting to retain the derogation in 2026.