CAP area premia 'another way of saving rural Ireland'
Joe is a North Tipperary farmer, who was "delighted" to see EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler come out this week with the strongest ever proposal for switching much of the EU's annual e43 billion subsidy payout from a headage basis to a per hectare basis.
And Joe isn't a lone voice crying in the wilderness. The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association has been a long-time supporter of the area based premiums as a much more suitable way of subsidising their members.
As a IFA member, Joe says the senior farm organisation is not listening to its members not a surprising verdict after he discovered overwhelming support for area based premia in his informal survey of 60 farmers in Lorrha and Rathcabben areas of North Tipperary .
That's in stark contrast to IFA's rejection of decoupled supports.
No one knows just how much per acre the European Commission has in mind when it talks about area premia and even pro-area base farmers have already shot down its proposal to skim 20% off any payment over e5,000 per farm, over seven years.
So the "rosy" scenario of area based premia in Joe Dolan's survey might never come true e240 per acre up to 300 acres for drystock and dairy farmers, with a scaled down premium per acre for extra acres over 300.
"It's another way of saving rural Ireland", believes Joe.
As it is, he believes that "farmers with 120 acres aren't surviving".
Life would improve immensely for what he sees as a typical North Tipperary farm of 100 acres, with a small milk quota and rearing followers for sale as stores.
"You'd have a guaranteed income at the start of the year, no more running after numbers", he says.
"Farmers are chasing premium payments", he says of the current system. But area based payments would allow relaxation of stocking rates, and farmers could become more efficient, saving on costs by using less inputs, saving the environment too in short, going back towards older, less intensive systems of farming.
The current system is enslaving farmers, leaving them with "no lifestyle", believes Joe.
They are spending fortunes going out buying cattle, just to draw the premium, he points out.
As for the form filling to apply for premiums, farmers live in dread of the one mistake than can land them in serious financial difficulty.
He believes that area based premiums would give control back to the farmer. If the markets are bad, farmers could cut back numbers without losing out on the premiums per head. Endless form filling would probably be replaced by sending in a farm map.
Joe says there has been heated discussion of area based premiums at recent North Tipperary IFA Executive meetings. As a sequel to one of these meetings, he was asked to carry out a survey of local farmers.
In this predominately drystock and small scale dairying area with farms from 50 acres up, he found that only farmers with more than 300 acres want to stay with the premiums per head.
