Commitment but lots to do

FINANCE Minister Brian Cowen made a welcome commitment last week in his Budget speech to “build up the viability and capacity of the farming sector to cope with the major challenges ahead.”

But much more will be needed than the few taxation concessions he went on to describe.

And in three weeks time, farmers will be poorly prepared when they face reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, the decoupling of farm supports from production, and the Nitrates Directive. As Minister Cowen pointed out, there’s also the recently agreed WTO framework agreement to contend with.