Bumper payout for some

SOME of the top earning farmers in the country, under the Fischler Mid-Term Reform of the CAP, are looking forward to premia payments on hectares which represent only a fraction of the land area they used during the reference years.

When entitlements are notified to each land owner early in 2004, individuals are expected to qualify for payments of up to 3,500 per hectare per year, over the next 10 years.

Entitlements are based on the premia which they drew down in the 2000, 2001 and 2002 reference years, and will be applied to the average of the land area included in their area aid returns for the same years.

It has now emerged that some of the top earners will be cattle fatteners who mainly finished their herds on land which was not included in their area aid applications.

The entitlements will be earned without their cattle ever setting foot on the land included in their area aid returns, or being fattened from the produce of this land.

The scenario arises where a beef finisher rented cattle sheds for the finishing of large numbers of beef animals, also purchasing from the farmer the produce of his land (the silage pit, in other words) to finish the cattle, during the reference years.

Although the produce of this land was used to finish the animals in the rented sheds, the finisher was not required to include the land in his area aid return, because the land had not been rented. As the recipient of the slaughter premium from the animals, the beef finisher gains the premia entitlement, which is applied to his own land area base, even though the livestock were finished from the produce of other lands.

As a result, their entitlements will be up to 3,500 per hectare.

The anomaly was raised at a recent meeting of the IFA National Council, at which it was felt that entitlements should go to the finisher, irrespective of the amount per hectare.

Clarification sought from the Department of Agriculture on the situation has not been available as yet.

The bonanza for large scale beef finishers, at the expense of smaller producers, has been highlighted as one of the anomalies in the CAP Reform which is infuriating some land owners, who feel that their particular situations have not been addressed, and who may be forced to resort to the courts for redress.