Funding to farmers may be cut
Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Minister Eamon Ó Cuiv raised the issue in an address to a meeting of the National Rural Development Forum in Athlone.
He said hard questions must asked as to whether rural prosperity can best be promoted through focusing the vast majority of the spending on direct farm investment or whether the development of a diversified rural economy and a consequent increase in spend on non-farming investment is the way forward.
“Allowing for the large drop in full-time farming and the educational attainments of our children, it seems to me that the latter option is the only realistic way forward”, he said.
But the IFA rural development committee chairman Padraic Divilly said rural development funding is a vital component of farm support. Pointing out that current rural development measures are worth in excess of €600 million to Irish farmers, Mr Divilly said any proposals by Mr Ó Cuiv to raid this budget will be strongly resisted.
Mr Ó Cuiv told the Forum in Athlone the key challenge for rural development policy in Ireland is to strike the correct balance between financial on-farm support and off-farm economic opportunity.
The recently published AgriVision 2015 report highlighted the challenge. If the current trend continues, the total number of farmers in the country is projected to fall to as low as 105,000 from the present 136,000 or so.
