14,000 on commonages must work together
However, various representatives have warned it will be impossible to get the estimated 14,000 farmers who use commonages to work together.
ICMSA president John Comer has warned: “If four farmers who have sheep on a hill are dependent on one another, it is a recipe for disaster.
“The notion of collective responsibility is lunacy. I do not know how anyone could have come up with it outside of a communist society.”
Co Leitrim-based senator Michael Comiskey, who is a farmer, said: “Farmers must sit down around a table and a rural environment protection scheme planner or departmental officials must become involved to help them to agree a stocking rate on commonages. This will be difficult, as a number of farmers on commonages might not be on good terms. If a blanket 10% cut was applied to all payments, it would have serious consequences.”
Commonage plans, first published in 2002, were enforced in order to control over-grazing. But the current condition of commonages nationally, with some undergrazed and others overgrazed, required a review which was carried out by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Department of Agriculture, which sets a minimum and maximum number of ewe equivalents to graze each commonage. Farmers must stay within this range to qualify for disadvantaged, agri-environmental and single farm payments.
Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said his department is trying to reconcile the reality of commonages with the EU requirements of Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC). “I will work with the farmers, farm organisations and others to design a practical solution.”
But IFA rural development chairman Flor McCarthy has warned that requiring collective agreement of all farmers in a commonage does not make sense. “One man doing his job right should not be penalised because one or two others are doing it wrong.”
Kerry South TD Michael Healy-Rae has warned that inactive farmers not availing of their right to a commonage will make the stocking rate requirements unworkable.
Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill said, “It would simply not work if one had to go to a neighbour to try to agree a stocking density on land.”
Cork East TD Tom Barry has said commonage issues are due to some farmers who are farming in name only, or have land ownership without taking responsibility. He said, “The active farmer needs to be protected. The situation of the inactive farmer, where people do not know who owns land on commonages, is unacceptable.”
Kerry South TD Brendan Griffin has raised the problem of overgrazing and overstocking by farmers with no commonage rights. Minister Coveney said, “Where farmers who have no rights on such commonages are causing overgrazing on these commonages, the situation should be brought to Department’s attention. However, as this is a civil matter, it is the responsibility of the legal shareholders to ensure that they address this situation.”
He said it is the responsibility of each farmer who has commonage shares to ensure that these commonages are kept in good agricultural and environmental condition.
