Experts to help out with plans
The Plans are expert assessments of commonages, with recommendations where necessary for reductions in sheep numbers, to allow vegetation to recover from overgrazing.
They were drawn up by agriculturalist-environmentalist teams, supervised by the Department of Agriculture and Food and Dúchas, the Heritage Service of the Department of the Environment and Local Government.
Commonage framework plans arise from an agreement with the European Commission in 1998, under which 3,700 REPS farmers with commonage receive an additional 7 million a year on top of their basic payments.
Farmers not in REPS can claim compensation for destocking from Dúchas. Some 5 million per year has been paid by Dúchas since 1999 to non-REPS farmers who had to destock.
Farmers who are unhappy with the latest round of destocking recommendations now have resort to a new appeals mechanism.
One appeal may be made against each framework plan, if at least 20% of commonage shareholders who have claimed area aid subscribe to the appeal.
For plans already published, appeals must be submitted before February 28, 2003. In other cases, an appeal must be submitted within three months.
Re-assessment will be carried out by an approved framework planning team other than the team that did the initial assessment.
Dúchas will contribute up to 1,300 towards the cost of re-assessment. The balance, if any, will be borne by the farmers.
The Department of Agriculture and Food and Dúchas can accept the results of reassessments or refer them to an Appeals Committee, made up of farmers and environmentalists, who will then make a recommendation to the Ministers.
IFA President John Dillon said, “It is clear from recent meetings on destocking held throughout the country that farmers are extremely annoyed at the way the destocking calculation can lead to some farmers having to destock sheep over and above the numbers that normally graze commonage land. This rule is not allowing farmers to stock green land to its potential and as a result will lead to significant income losses.”
ICSA’s Leinster Vice President John Deegan has welcomed the appeals system, but said he was deeply unhappy that ICSA, which represents more than 4,000 sheep farmers, were not been invited onto the Appeals Committee.
