Big jump in long term leasing despite overcharging allegations

A move away from conacre towards long-term leasing has been welcomed — but young farmers have led a campaign against landowners overcharging for leases.

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said last week that the move from conacre towards long-term leasing is one of the great successes quietly happening in agriculture, since tax changes to encourage long-term leasing were introduced.

“The increase in the numbers of farmers in long-term leasing is significantly up, maybe by 27%, and we need to keep pushing it because for young farmers to get a piece of land for 11 months is a disaster on lots of levels, especially when it comes to borrowing money on the back of it and investing in the soil in a field, if they do not know they are going to have it the following year. We need to get long-term leasing in place, and it is starting to work.”

However, Wicklow Fine Gael TD Andrew Doyle said last week that young farmers getting the 25% basic payment top-up are being overcharged for leasing by landowners.

He suggested an upper limit of about 200 acres on tax-free leasing, to put a brake on the price.

Minister Coveney said he has also been asked to stop the tax break at a certain amount per acre of spend, in order to keep prices down a bit.

He said, “One is kind of moving into the territory of price fixing in that case, which sometimes has knock-on consequences in terms of the availability of land.

“The most important thing here is that as much land is available for lease as possible.

“We do not want any disincentive to landowners in respect of making land available for lease. If we start to control prices and change the incentive, thereby reducing the amount of land available, we will be in a dangerous circle of having less land, thereby driving the price up even more, and trying to force it down through tax measures.

“We will look at it, but that proposal is a double-edged sword.”