ICMSA: Exclude lease-breaking farmers from Single Farm Payment

LANDOWNERS who break their leases should be excluded from Single Farm Payment (SFP), according to ICMSA president John Comer.

With EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos due in Dublin tomorrow, the ICMSA’s executive last night met with legal counsel to assess the leaseholder’s rights in relation to future EU farm payments. The outcome of that meeting was not known at the time of going to press.

Landowners have been grabbing back leased-out land since last October when the EU issued its new SFP proposals, under which farmers’ payments are to be based upon land ownership rather than upon the old farm output model.

Officially scheduled for January 2014 — but likely to be deferred for at least a year — the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payment proposals are causing great concern in Ireland. Unlike most other EU member states, Irish agriculture has a huge dependence on rented and leased land.

Mr Comer explained: “Around 20% of Irish farmland is either rented or leased, and about 30% of all production is from land that is either rented or leased. Minister Coveney understands the issue, but there are only two other member states in the EU27 who share Ireland’s view on this.

“I would like to see the power in the hands of the people who are producing food. Anybody who breaks a lease should not be rewarded. There are some parallels between this SFP issue and previous farmer entitlements in relation to land quota, and we are looking at the legal situation surrounding this.”

In Ireland, the model being proposed under the new CAP could see future farm payments going to the owners of land which is allowed to lie idle, with ‘active farmers’ excluded from access to both rentable land and SFP payments for lands they had been farming.

The ICMSA wants the EC to review its proposal to use an as-yet unspecified ‘base year’ as the basis for payments, which has exacerbated the land-leasing issue. The farm group will also seek to impress upon Mr Ciolos the need for flexibility in the environmental (or “greening”) strictures under the new CAP.

Mr Comer said: “The expanded production goals in the Government’s Food Harvest 2020 report will require pastures to be renewed. We are looking at how to renew those grasslands with Teagasc to ensure it is done in an environmentally-friendly way. We will need some flexibility in the greening proposals to ensure that this expansion is workable in practical terms.

“We will also monitor the situation around the Nitrates Derogation and set out the policy for a continuation or ‘roll-over’ of the derogation at the opportune time.”

Mr Comer also anticipates that the EU legislation to replace the milk quota system — which has already reached an advanced state of negotiation — will be finalised this year.

He said: “The importance of this new measure to Ireland cannot be overstated and ICMSA will be looking to see two fundamental requirements. Firstly, there must be adequate market supports and market crisis management systems to prevent any kind of dairy price collapse that occurred in 2009.

“Secondly, and presuming the Commission and member states realise the necessity for the first requirement, there must be sufficient funds allocated for this purpose ... we must have market support measures and a market-support plan, but we must also have the funds necessary to make those measures meaningful.”