The Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, has ruled out a €200 suckler cow payment, but is open to considering such a payment post 2020.

Speaking at the IFA AGM on Tuesday, the minister said he does not have the flexibility in the existing national envelope of money from Europe to take money from one area and put it into another.

He said that if Ireland were to go to coupled payment, the country is in danger of undermining the progress made to date in the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP).

“It [BDGP] isn’t without critics. The flexibility to introduce a coupled payment would have to come from the existing envelope, working from existing pot.”

Minister Creed said that he is not sure cutting basic payments is a road to go down, but that he is open to a suckler cow payment in terms of CAP 2020.

"It is not a lucrative business, but is possible to improve competitiveness,” he said.

Fodder

On the topic of a transport subsidy to help with the cost of bringing fodder to the northwest, Minister Creed said that a transport subsidy is on the way, but it will be a number of days before more details on the subsidy will be announced.

The minister could not put a figure on how much the department would deploy to such a subsidy.

No holds barred

Minister Creed also said he welcomed the “no holds barred” conversations on the many issues that come up at the IFA AGM each year.

“This time last year, in a way reeling still from effects of the Brexit vote, the new president in the US, elections in Europe and questions around renationalisation.”

The minister said that farmers can look back on 2017 with some degree of comfort and if he were to take one measurement of the 2017 year, it was the results announced by Bord Bia, recording an eighth successive year of growth in exports.

“It vindicates the ambition set out in FoodWise2025. It’s proof that we’re on the right road.”

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