Farm inspections campaign continues

THE campaign by members of the Irish Farmers Association in not allowing on-farm access to Department of Agriculture and Food officials for unannounced inspections continued yesterday.

IFA president Padraig Walshe said the campaign had thrown up a litany of cases with farmers penalised for the most ridiculous and flimsy items.

Penalties were being imposed for not having a map of where rat bait was laid, for having dog food stored in a farm building, for water coming off a laneway being categorised as slurry and for not having a garage receipt for the disposal of burnt tractor oil.

He said the department is working off a checklist that contains a staggering 1,450 different sections to be completed by the inspector on the farm. In addition, these documents require 28 different signatures by the inspectors.

Mr Walshe said it was neither acceptable nor necessary for department inspectors to be standing over farmers in milking parlours watching them doing their work. Farmers objected strongly to this unreasonable intrusion.

An amendment to EU regulations relating to on-farm inspections is meanwhile being sought by Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan. She confirmed yesterday that she wants the EU to allow advance notification in all single payment scheme inspection cases where it will not jeopardise the objectives.

Ms Coughlan said she has made her views known to EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel and to her German counterpart, Horst Seehofer, who has earmarked CAP simplification as a core issue for his presidency of the Agriculture Council from January 1 next.

She said she strongly believes that pre-notification of on-farm inspections for various schemes fits in with the practicalities of Irish agriculture where, increasingly, farmers are also engaged in off-farm employment.

The minister again explained that, under the relevant EU rules, her department is required to carry out certain levels of on-the-spot inspections on farms to ensure that applicants are adhering to scheme conditions. She said 8,200 farmers out of 130,000 single payment scheme applicants have had their holdings selected for on-the-spot inspection. This is a significant drop in the level of inspections under the old livestock premia schemes which exceeded 20,000 annually.