A bit like Tipperary winning the All-Ireland, you would have got a good price from a bookmaker if they had said that by the end of July, the nitrates derogation would be hanging by a thread.

Include a proposal from the EU that CAP would be slashed by 20% and the odds would have been even better.

If you had included the fact that Mercosur would be closer to crossing the line than at any other stage in the last 20 years, you would have been looking at getting €100 for every €1 laid down.

ADVERTISEMENT

This week, Minister Heydon is six months into office and it’s an understatement to say that the he has had a more eventful first six months than most of his predecessors.

Throw in the delayed payment of ACRES money and GAEC 2 and you have a rollercoaster of an introduction to a job. All of the above happened as a tariff war rages between large trading blocks leaving our food exporting nation in limbo.

Upside

On the upside, if you had said beef would hit €8/kg and weanlings would have doubled in price, it would take away a lot of the torment. Factor in a cost of production reduction at farm level and an excellent year for growing grass and you can see why the majority of beef, sheep and dairy farmers are just going quietly about their business.

However, leaving all of the above aside, some farmers are beginning to ask the question whether they really know in Brussels what we do in Ireland?

I remember being taken aback by the delight of the previous EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski in Brussels when I told him that close to 130,000 Irish farmers sign up for CAP each year.

At the same meeting, the Commissioner highlighted the Irish positives around grass, animal welfare etc.

When you get CAP proposals that effectively say part-time farmers will be forced to make a choice whether they go full-time farming or leave the off-farm job if they want to continue getting EU support, it makes you wonder who makes the rules up.

It was heartening to hear the Minister this week acknowledge that part-time farming is such an integral part of Irish farming that this particular proposal would need major revision to work in Ireland and that CAP 2028 has a long way to run.

Nitrates derogation

The CAP might have a long way to run but the Nitrates game is staring into injury time. We are the only EU country where a stocking rate derogation actually impacts so significantly.

We often hear Department officials say other EU countries no longer have a derogation, but its significance to them is minuscule compared to Ireland.

They have systems driven on production per cow and feed imports into the country. It’s not what the 500 plus farmers who attended the Irish Grassland Association walk in Cork on Wednesday do.

The Minister is holding the line that he would like to make a derogation application by the end of July and include “Appropriate Assessment” in the application).

Adamant

He is adamant that without addressing the Habitats Directive, the derogation application will be refused and Ireland’s stocking rate derogation from 170kg to 220kg falls over the cliff in December.

The Minister is in effect saying he is boxed into a corner and that is his only exit card.

If the farm organisations go against him and we don’t include “Appropriate Assessment” in the application, the Minister can blame the farm organisations when it is refused.

If they support him, they essentially sign up to increasing red tape, huge uncertainty, legal challenges to any kind of farming left right and centre, huge cost and the real possibility that you will have grassland farming denied in many parts of the country. To say the potential impacts on farming either way are huge is an understatement.

The meetings behind closed doors this week need to come with a sensible and practical alternative for both the Minister and the farmers.

Farming at 1.8 livestock units per hectare in many cases makes the last 60 years of farm research and advisory redundant and takes farming in Ireland back to the 1960s.