Payments system is broken - Heydon

The new Minister for Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and the Marine Martin Heydon wants to increase payments to farmers, but is just as focused on making supports more accessible.

Responding to why there are no spending targets for farm schemes in the Programme for Government, he said that “farmers can absolutely rest assured the determination is to continue on a trajectory of increasing incomes”.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal , he said that right through the general election campaign he highlighted that you can’t have this conversation about the money alone, without reflecting on how the model is broken.

“There’s a reason that half of sheep farmers are not in the Sheep Welfare Scheme, even though the payment increased by 150%. There’s a reason that two thirds of beef farmers are not in the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP). It’s because the cost incurred income forgone model means that the system is broken.

“I have 17 months before Ireland assumes the European presidency at a pivotal time in negotiating the next CAP. I will be setting out really clearly what Ireland’s key priorities are.

“Farm supports need to do what they say on the tin, they need to support farmers. The current model doesn’t support that. We’ve got to be able to move back to a more simplified system,” he said. The Kildare south TD said that in an ideal world we would move back to a whole of farm approach.

“How many times do farmers say there was never anything like REPS? I was in REPS and I agree. I’ve been in AEOS, in GLAS, and I see the challenges in ACRES now. A farmer came up to me in Castleisland and said would you just give us €200 a cow and do away with all the conditionality? I realised he was saying farmers do want to be supported, but the level of conditionality that goes with it, means that they’re unable to avail of schemes,” he said.