More than €112m in grant aid has been provided to young farmers under TAMS II, based on figures supplied to Macra na Feirme by the Department of Agriculture.

With the majority of these provided at 60% grant aid, the total spend by young farmers in their local economy is at least €186m, Macra president Thomas Duffy has said.

He hailed the level of investment by young farmers on their farms since 2015 and said the figure demonstrated the level of benefit from supporting young farmers to rural economies as a whole.

Department figures show 1,333 partnerships with at least one young farmer involved were funded, along with 1,652 individual young farmers funded across a total of 4,311 TAMS applications.

Investments

The majority of the investment has taken place in animal housing, followed by milking machines and mass concrete tanks. The fourth-largest allocation was for low-emission slurry spreaders.

“Young farmers are making significant investments to improve their environmental impact and they should be recognised not villainised for their investments," said Macra agricultural affairs chair Shane Fitzgerald.

Other investments include minimum tillage equipment, sheep fencing and precision equipment, including GPS and cattle weighting.

New scheme

Duffy said: “The numbers in 2020 applying to the Young Farmers Scheme have fallen and so there is going to be a reduction in spend to support generational renewal by the State.

“We need a TAMS Young Farmer Scheme over the transitionary period which will allow all those under 40 to apply and abolish the outdated five-year rule applied by the Department of Agriculture.”

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