New CAP: ignorance is bliss

IN two weeks time, dairy farmers will start earning their 5.5 cent per gallon compensation from the Fischler Reform.

They won’t get the money until December but, long before that, every farmer will be told in the New Year what their new “entitlements” will be from January, 2005, when the 12 year old premium and arable aid system is scrapped.

The letter from the Department may come as a pleasant surprise to one farmer in four, who recently told Teagasc in a survey that they were not yet familiar with the reform of the Common Agriculture Policy agreed last June.