Farming organisations, co-ops, credit unions and the Department of Agriculture need to step up efforts to help farmers in bad debt cases, David Hall, chief executive of the Irish Mortgage Holders Association, has warned.

Hall told the Irish Farmers Journal that he expects thousands of farm loans to be sold to vulture funds and repossessions to accelerate.

“The banks are preparing to sell stuff now,” he warned. “It is much harder to discuss with a vulture fund than a bank. Their business is to take over the loans, sell the stuff and make a profit.”

Hall called on the industry to step up the negotiation assistance available to farmers.

When banks do put debt up for sale, “a co-op structure could take over those loans and a lot of farmers could service their debt at the price a vulture fund would buy it”, he added. Failing, that, “vulture funds will decimate rural Ireland,” Hall said.

IFA farm business chair Martin Stapleton called on the 2,000 estimated farmers in debt difficulty to “engage with whoever owns their loans” and seek professional advice. However, he said that it was probably too late to create a bridging loan fund, as banks had already sold on most affected farm debt. The IFA credit helpline is 1890-924853.

New lending to Irish farmers up 19%

'Vulture funds will decimate rural Ireland'

The Irish Mortgage Holders Association has called for increased negotiation assistance and a bridging loan fund to protect indebted farms from vulture funds.