IFA urges banks to alleviate cash-flow difficulties by providing loans

BANKS were urged yesterday to assist the difficult cash-flow situation on farms by providing bridging loans at competitive interest rates.

Irish Farmers Association president Padraig Walshe made the call following the European Commission decision to increase the advance element of the single farm payment this year to 70%.

“Farmers have very severe cash-flow problems this summer, following an expensive winter and spring, and very low product prices particularly for milk,” he said.

Mr Walshe said the IFA is proposing to the banks that they should make adequate short-term funding available to tide farmers over these difficult next few months, and secure the funding against the advance single farm payment in October.

Mr Walshe said preliminary discussions with the banks had been positive and he urged farmers experiencing cash flow problems to contact their bank.

Meanwhile, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association has called on the minister, Brendan Smith, to make available to farmers the calculations of grant payments under the farm waste management scheme so they may be compared with Department of Agriculture costings and agreed payments.

Malcolm Thompson, president, said: “We are simply getting too many farmers who feel short changed when they get their approval and 40% of their grant payment.

“Many of these payments fall far short of what they were told to expect by Teagasc or by their farm advisor, and without the calculations we are at a loss to see what has gone wrong,” he said.