No SFP for 4m acres

MILLIONS of acres of Irish farmland could be left lying dormant when the new EU single payment system kicks in next January.

Many farmers will benefit from windfall entitlements, but owners of nearly four million acres face a nightmare of lost income prospects.

Without entitlements to make farming profitable, their land is likely to go fallow; it is calculated that the Government would have to claw back a massive 30% from all single payment recipients to fund single payments for the huge "dormant" acreage.