An Offaly farmer in his late 60s has outlined his disappointment with the recent Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) proposals.
William Reid, a member of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association (ICSA), said he is "terribly disappointed" with what the European Commission has tabled.
"I’m in my late 60s and I’m going through the process of succession planning. I have a daughter and she will be inheriting the farm. In the CAP proposals, there’s no encouragement there for young people.
"My daughter will likely have an off-farm job and it looks like they’re going to look at her earnings and see what part of a single farm payment she is entitled to. If I was to farm beyond 2032, I have to choose between a pension or a single farm payment.
"What encouragement is there? We have to figure out what we do on the farm, do you let the farm just tick over?" he asked.
Change in farming
Reid said that he and his daughter are going to have to look for a farm enterprise that takes very little time and not a lot of money and to keep the farm just ticking over.
"It’s necessary to have some sort of activity to be classified as an active farmer. It’ll be very difficult to do much commercial farming.
"The single farm payment that I began farming with, I would need five of those payments today to buy what that one payment would have bought when I got it. It was never index-linked," Reid, who farms in Birr, told the Irish Farmers Journal.
"There’s an inflation in farming that may not be in other businesses, it’s gone out of hand. Then, for example, barley today is making the same money it did 40 years ago," he said.
There’s no support for mainstream agriculture in this proposal, the Offaly farmer added.
Claw back
"If your single farm payment is above a certain figure, they will claw back a certain percentage of it. There’s no support there.
"The other thing that is not acknowledged in the CAP proposals is how big some operators have become. You see farmers get older before they should.
"There’s a huge physical demand working on farms that’s not addressed in policy. You can’t do it for a long time. As the herds get bigger, these farmers get wore out. It’s not being acknowledged."
Read more
CAP 2028 farmer reaction: 'do they want us to be gardeners or farmers?'
An Offaly farmer in his late 60s has outlined his disappointment with the recent Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) proposals.
William Reid, a member of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association (ICSA), said he is "terribly disappointed" with what the European Commission has tabled.
"I’m in my late 60s and I’m going through the process of succession planning. I have a daughter and she will be inheriting the farm. In the CAP proposals, there’s no encouragement there for young people.
"My daughter will likely have an off-farm job and it looks like they’re going to look at her earnings and see what part of a single farm payment she is entitled to. If I was to farm beyond 2032, I have to choose between a pension or a single farm payment.
"What encouragement is there? We have to figure out what we do on the farm, do you let the farm just tick over?" he asked.
Change in farming
Reid said that he and his daughter are going to have to look for a farm enterprise that takes very little time and not a lot of money and to keep the farm just ticking over.
"It’s necessary to have some sort of activity to be classified as an active farmer. It’ll be very difficult to do much commercial farming.
"The single farm payment that I began farming with, I would need five of those payments today to buy what that one payment would have bought when I got it. It was never index-linked," Reid, who farms in Birr, told the Irish Farmers Journal.
"There’s an inflation in farming that may not be in other businesses, it’s gone out of hand. Then, for example, barley today is making the same money it did 40 years ago," he said.
There’s no support for mainstream agriculture in this proposal, the Offaly farmer added.
Claw back
"If your single farm payment is above a certain figure, they will claw back a certain percentage of it. There’s no support there.
"The other thing that is not acknowledged in the CAP proposals is how big some operators have become. You see farmers get older before they should.
"There’s a huge physical demand working on farms that’s not addressed in policy. You can’t do it for a long time. As the herds get bigger, these farmers get wore out. It’s not being acknowledged."
Read more
CAP 2028 farmer reaction: 'do they want us to be gardeners or farmers?'
SHARING OPTIONS