More SP in commonage

SINGLE payment entitlements have been improved for certain sheep farmers with commonage land.

These farmers suffered Framework Plan reductions in ewe numbers, but Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan has now ruled that many of them farmed very extensively and could not therefore have contributed to the overgrazing problem which Framework Planning was designed to alleviate.

The Minister has decided therefore to increase Single Payment entitlements from the National Reserve to qualifying farmers throughout the country, whose gross Single Payment entitlement (including decoupled Dairy Premium) is less than €6,000, and where stocking density for 2001 was less than three ewe equivalents per hectare.