Cuts to big farmers quartered in new deal

Big Irish farmers and food processing plants will lose just about a quarter of what they were slated to lose under a deal reached by EU agriculture ministers last night.

The biggest reform of the bloc’s agriculture policy in close to a decade aimed to ensure all farmers, big and small, got a fairer share of the €380bn farm budget over the next seven years.

Irish farmers will get €1.5bn a year but, because of changes to the system, 60,300 will be up to 25% better off, while 53,500 will lose up to a fifth of their payments.