ICMSA tells Government to ‘ease up on rhetoric and deliver on policies’

FARMERS want the Government to deliver pro-expansion policies and reduce the “windy rhetoric” about how Irish farming will “feed the world”, according to the ICMSA.

John Comer, the dairy farmer group’s deputy president, said there is a deep contradiction between the Government’s “media-focused cheerleading” and its undermining of key supports such as the targeted agricultural modernisation schemes and the stamp duty relief for farm consolidation.

Mr Comer said: “That stamp duty relief was set up to encourage dairy farmers to buy nearby land. A beef farmer can drive ten or 15 miles to a second piece of land, but a dairy farmer can’t do that.