Brussels subsidy plans not good for Goodman

A COMPANY belonging to the beef baron Larry Goodman stands to lose about €200,000 a year in farm subsidies under plans being drawn up in Brussels.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act last August showed that Mr Goodman’s company, Irish Agricultural Development, would get a total of €508,390, around €10,000 a week — in Common Agricultural Policy payments.

Mr Goodman, who is Europe’s largest beef producer, is placed 24th in the Sunday Times rich list for Ireland, with a reputed personal wealth of some €379 million.

The FOI data revealed that Kepak Farm, part of the meat processing group owned by the Keating family, was the second biggest recipient of EU subsidies in Ireland, with entitlements of €346,118 a year.

But the EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has indicated she intends to revive plans to put a ceiling on the subsidies any single landowner can receive, likely to be set at about €300,000 a year.

About 2,000 farms across Europe which received more than €300,000 in 2003, as well as collective farms in former East Germany, would be affected.

A spokesman for the Irish Farmers Association said the average pay-out under the single farm payment in Ireland is €10,000.

Jack Thurston, the group’s founder, said the Commission was attracted to the idea of a cap because it was an “easily understood, visible symbol” of CAP reform.

But it was not necessarily the best way of dealing with the problem, because large farms might simply split up ownership to get round it. According to figures released under Britain’s Freedom of Information Act, the Duke of Westminster received £448,000 (€649,000) in subsidies for Grosvenor Farms, while Blenheim Farm Partnership, owned by the Duke of Marlborough, was paid £511,000 (€741,000) in 2004.