The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) has confirmed that senior Department of Agriculture officials will be among the line-up addressing farmers at an association meeting on recent developments affecting farmers on peat soils.

New BISS rules for farmers on peat soils, the rollout of the EU Nature Restoration Law and plans to reduce farming intensity across 80,000ha of drained peat farmland were to be discussed at the meeting at 8pm in the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone on Thursday.

The meeting was called after the Irish Farmers Journal revealed that the Department convened an "invite-only" workshop to discuss reducing the management intensity of peat soils to curb greenhouse emissions with measures, including rewetting, but did not invite farming organisations to participate.

IFA deputy president Alice Doyle will chair the meeting, which is to hear from Teagasc’s senior research officer Dr Pat Touhy, assistant secretary general in the Department Paul Savage, senior Department inspector Michael Moloney and IFA director of policy Tadhg Buckley.

Policy developments

Policy developments targeting peat soils “threaten to wipe out commercial farming and devalue land at the stroke of a pen”, she warned when announcing the speaker lineup for Thursday.

"Firstly, farmers need to be fully informed about what is going on,” the deputy IFA leader said.

“Most of these issues are resulting from decisions made by the previous Government and the previous European Commission.

“However, the new Government and Commission seem to be hellbent on implementing all of these measures, despite promises of simplification and reduced bureaucracy.”

The meeting will also hear an update on the IFA’s demand for outstanding ACRES payments to issue immediately amid still-ongoing payment delays for participating farmers.