IFA warns that budget cuts in sector will hit 300,000 livelihoods

ANY cuts in farm schemes in next week’s budget will hit jobs in the farming and agri-food sector which support 300,000 livelihoods, the Irish Farmers Association said yesterday.

IFA president Padraig Walshe told Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith at a pre-budget meeting that such moves would seriously damage the prospects for national economic recovery.

“The Government must protect existing jobs if the country is to return to growth,” he said.

Mr Walshe said with the construction and financial services in a state of collapse, the country is depending on the productive, export-oriented sectors like the agri-food sector, to pull it out of this recession.

“The two main priorities of this budget must be the preservation of jobs and the achievement of sustainable growth in the export-earning sectors,” he said.

Mr Walshe said agriculture is the mainstay of employment in the rural economy and has proven much more resilient in the downturn than other sectors. There are 116,000 directly employed in primary agriculture, with a further 40,000 employed in agri-food manufacturing.

The IFA leader, who met with Environment Minister John Gormley on Tuesday evening, said the proposal that local authorities carry out on-farm inspections identical to those done by the Department of Agriculture is unnecessary, unacceptable and a waste of public money.

“In recent years farmers have invested almost e2 billion of their own money upgrading farmyards and farm buildings to comply with the highest environmental standards.

“The record shows a very high level of compliance with water quality legislation,” he said.

Speaking after Macra na Feirme’s pre-budget meeting with the Agriculture Minister its agricultural affairs committee chairman Eddie O’Donnell said agriculture and young farmers were disproportionately affected in the last budget.

“The door must be left open for new entrants to take up a career in farming,” said Mr O’Donnell. Otherwise the 7% rate of young farmers under 35 will deteriorate rapidly, he warned.