Auditors discover blunder by Commission 12 years on

THE definition of a “farmer” to qualify for 20 years of forestry premia should, logically, be a man or woman who had farmed the land for a specific period prior to planting trees.

Instead, it was defined by the European Commission, more than a decade ago, as anyone who could show that a quarter of their total income was derived from agriculture. As a result, it didn’t matter if they had farmed the land intended for planting for half a century, if their off-farm income was more than three times the income from the land, they were not entitled to the generous “farmer” premia on offer to encourage plantation. They qualified for a lower rate of premia, over a period five years shorter than the “farmer” premia term.

Now, the EU Court of Auditors are unhappy with how the EU forestry scheme operates in Ireland. They point out that premia are paid to compensate for income loss, when growing trees on land which was previously used for farming. EU Court officials were unhappy when they randomly selected some Irish plantations for closer scrutiny and found that none of the selected premia beneficiaries had farmed the land before it was planted.