‘System has trapped farmers in subsidy-driven rat race’

MEATH beef farmer Joe Kilmartin believes the current CAP is unsustainable because it is not delivering results for either farmer or consumer.

He welcomed the proposals for a new system, which he predicts will put more money into farmers’ pockets in return for producing high quality food for the European market.

He said: “It is time to bin the current system, which has trapped farmers in a subsidy-driven rat race, where their quality produce is exploited with low prices and where they are bound in a bureaucratic straitjacket.”