Minister keeps door open to further tightening of agri reliefs for investors

Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue signaled that new terms to agricultural relief eligibility could be tightened even further if Budget 2025’s changes are not sufficient in safeguarding the reliefs from use as a wealth management tool by non-farmers.

The Minister described as “very significant” a change which will see individuals having to own farmland for six years before it can be passed on to a family member availing of agricultural reliefs when speaking about the budget on Wednesday.

He said the change is aimed at safeguarding the farm sector reliefs from being used by wealthy non-farmers looking to minimise their inheritance tax.

After Budget 2025, a parent can pass over a farm worth €4m to their child tax-free, where inheritance tax kicked in after €3.35m previously.

A change to agricultural reliefs will see the original landowner having to own the land for six years for the land to be transferred with reliefs.

Up to now, it was only the individual inheriting the land that had to own the land for six years to avail of the relief.

“We moved to 12 [years] from six in this budget and I will monitor this very closely, because I want to make sure that it is active farmers that are benefiting from this,” Minister McConalogue commented on Wednesday.

“I want to ensure that we don’t have high-rollers coming in and buying up land at the cost of local farmers and local, young farmers who want to build a farming enterprise.

“The objective behind that is to ensure it is not utilised by those who want to manage their wealth, that it is actually targeted at young farmers and family farms to make sure that it serves the purpose we want to see.”

BVD and IBR

Minister McConalogue was unable to give a funding breakdown of the “additional” €10m for animal health measures allocated to bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD), infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) and the targeted advisory service on animal health (TASAH).

“It is something we are finalising and we will finalise in advance of next year how it is spent, working on the basis of what we have spent on it last year,” he said.

“Our objective is to be able to operate a BVD scheme, an IBR scheme and a new targeted animal health scheme as well, similar to the one we ran two years ago assisting farmers to develop herd health plans.”

He did rule out that IBR testing is among the measures which will be considered for the extra action that farmers must complete to avail of the €25/head top-up announced for the Beef Welfare Scheme.

The measure was controversially included in Budget 2023’s suckler scheme.

“That is not an intention we would have. We still have to decide upon the measures that will be under the suckler beef scheme and that is something we will consult farming organisations on as well,” Minister McConalogue told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“The budget is very much clarifying what the funding allocation will be and that will be in going from €50 to €75, so we will engage now on what measures will constitute that, but it is planned that [IBR testing] will not be the case.”

Organics ‘on track’

Minister of State Pippa Hackett stated that the €67m allocated in funding for organics should keep the sector in line with meeting its headline target of covering one in every 10ac farmed in the country by 2030.

“We are on track to meet our target of 10% by 2030 and the funding I have secured for 2025 will allow us to continue on this positive trajectory by opening the Organic Farming Scheme to new applicants and I hope to do that very shortly,” Minister Hackett commented.

The budget also saw €3.5m in funding allocated to the Organic Processing Investment Grant Scheme.

Minister Hackett added that field-grown horticultural crops will be eligible for the €100/ha payment announced for tillage farmers harvesting crops in the 2024 growing season.

Some €350m has been ringfenced for State bodies under the Department of Agriculture’s remit, not including those related to horses and greyhounds, Minister of State Martin Heydon said.

Bord Bia and Teagasc’s funding will be drawn from this pot, with Minister Heydon commenting that “negotiations are still ongoing” on each body’s allocation for next year.