IFA says don't blame us
They met the association's leaders at Mallow. But farmers are wrong to blame IFA for not protecting their interests, said Donal Kelly, Munster vice-president, last week.
He defended the organisation's input into the EU Single Payment policy, which has become a more and more contentious issue among farmers as details of next year's new farming payments scheme emerge.
Mr Kelly said: "There is no doubt some farmers are very angry over losing out on Single Payment entitlements, and they are blaming the IFA for not protecting their interests, which is unfair".
He told a meeting on "Viability on the Family Farm post-Fischler" in West Limerick that the decision on decoupling was taken by the Government, having been voted for by farmers who attended nationwide Department of Agriculture information meetings last autumn.
"We agreed to meet a deputation of seven farmers prior to our meeting at Mallow this week. Thirty-five farmers turned up. They were very angry over losing out on payments, and told us they didn't realise that they were going to be the losers that they are in the Single Payment.
"There is no doubt that they are losing out, and there are people who will have no entitlements on their land. But it is not correct to blame the IFA, because the farmers voted for decoupling and indicated that is what they wanted", he added.
Mr Kelly said that active farmers who sold their male animals without drawing premiums are among the big losers and, any surplus funds available after entitlements are allocated will be inadequate to recompense them.
He confirmed that IFA will meet representatives of Early Retirement Scheme farmers who are also concerned about entitlements on their land, which is mostly leased, with the entitlements going to the lessor, not the landowner.
Dairy farmers are now also becoming critical of the decoupled dairy premium regulations. While some will have the dairy premium allocated to the acreage of land submitted in their area aid application in the reference years of 2000, 2001 and 2002, farmers who made no application for area aid will now benefit, by having entitlements allocated to the land held by them in 2005, the first year of the decoupled payment.
These "latecomers" therefore have the opportunity of deciding their area base, which is not available to those who took the general advice at the time and made an area aid application in the reference years.
