Farming organisations call for more aid for the ‘forgotten farmers’
IFA rural development chair John Curran said: 'The forgotten farmer scheme is long overdue, but what the department is currently offering falls far short of what the installation aid was in the past.'
Following the announcement of the long-established young farmers scheme, farming organisations say more aid is needed.
The scheme aims to help the ‘forgotten farmers’, a group defined as young farmers who were under the age of 40 in 2015, who were not eligible for young farmer supports under the CAP from 2015 due to the date they had first set up in agriculture.
The IFA and ICMSA have both said the Department of Agriculture needs to do more.
IFA rural development chair John Curran said: "The forgotten farmer scheme is long overdue, but what the department is currently offering falls far short of what the installation aid was in the past.”
“The €5m was allocated in the last budget, with commitments that more would be secured if needed. The minister needs to follow through on this, secure the necessary funding and ensure all forgotten farmers are not forgotten again,” he said.
“All eligible farmers, including those starting out in 2008 and thereafter, should get at least the equivalent amount as they would have received under the installation aid,” Mr Curran said.
The ICMSA’s deputy president, and chairperson of the farm and rural affairs committee, Eamon Carroll, noted the ICMSA had advocated for such a scheme for many years.
“This initiative is a long time coming and will be appreciated by those who qualify. However, the eligibility criteria are disappointingly narrow and there will be many obviously deserving cases that will not qualify, as presently set out,” he stated.
Mr Carroll said a significant concern was the cut-off date of December 31, 2007, which will exclude many farmers who did not previously benefit, and are now in their late 40s or early 50s.
“These were people who began farming during a period of economic hardship and who had limited access to any kind of young farmer supports. ICMSA is calling on the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to extend eligibility to include all farmers who entered the sector before 2015 and who never received young farmer payments.
"The minister can make this important change and ICMSA urges him to do so in the interests of basic fairness”, Mr Carroll said.
