You might expect that if Ireland was to get over €11 billion from somewhere it would be the talking point in pubs and shopping centres throughout the country. But there has been surprisingly little discussion about the recent deals in Brussels which promise Irish farmers more than €1.5 billion a year for the next seven years.
However, at farming level, there has indeed been lots of tough talking about the draft agreement by EU farm ministers on reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. The kernel of the debate is how the €1.2 billion in direct payments to individual farmers will be shared out between them.
For decades, there has been criticism that big farmers draw inordinately high amounts from the Common Agricultural Policy. There were strong hopes yet again, that this round of Cap reform would finally see smaller farmers draw down a bigger share-out of the direct payments.
But there was significant resistance here to any radical redistribution. The Irish Farmers Association, for example, wanted productive farmers with good payments to retain them rather than having more money being directed to large farmers with low output.
However, some smaller farmers in Conn acht are now angrily goading their own organisation, the IFA, to secure a fairer outcome for them in further negotiations before the Cap reform is eventually finalised in June. The European Parliament and European Commission are expected to sign off then on the draft deal reached by EU agriculture ministers on March 19th.
There is great secrecy about who gets what from Brussels. But for a short time some years ago, the figures for the 137,736 recipients were available on the Department of Agriculture website. They showed that in 2009 major food companies were the largest recipients.
The top 10 farmers received payments between €432,564 and €299,926. The average subsidy, known as the Single Farm Payment or “entitlement” is about €10,000. But about 40,000 farmers get less than €5,000.
The draft March agreement allows individual countries the option of introducing a voluntary minimum payment, and possible curbs in staggered amounts on payments of more than €150,000.
The IFA had argued that any changes to the method of calculating the individual payment must not damage the country’s most efficient farmers. For the past decade, the payment was based on the number of animals owned by individual farmers or acres under tillage in the period 2000-2002.
In the draft reform agreed by Simon Coveney and his fellow EU ministers last month, there will be a move away from these production-based payments to a flat rate per hectare.
The bonus for Ireland is that there will be flexibility for a gradual changeover. Coveney reckons about 60,000 farmers here will see their entitlement increase, while 54,000 farmers will suffer losses. The IFA believe 70,000 will benefit.
Not surprisingly, this outcome is divisive amongst the winners and losers. Some small farmers in the West of Ireland accuse the IFA of letting them down by lobbying to protect the biggest farmers. They argue that if a maximum of about €35,000 were put on all payments, it would leave more for people at the bottom.
Arrangement
Those on the other side ask why should small or part-time farmers, who may have other sources of income, get preferential treatment at the expense of full-time committed commercial farmers.
Even if there was to be a more substantial transfer of funds to small landowners by way of larger payment per hectare, some modest-size farmers will lose out. A Connemara farmer with small acreage but with high livestock density, for instance, would suffer in the new arrangement because he would get more money for his animal headcount than for the size of his farm. Likewise, a large landowner with few livestock with get a huge payment increase because of his high acreage.
In addition to €1.2 billion in direct payments to Ireland, the EU Summit in February agreed to provide €300 million annually in rural development subsidies which benefit many in disadvantaged areas. The IFA now wants the Government provide matching funds for these schemes.
But the perennial argument about the fairness of the Single Farm Payment will continue. This argument of who gets what goes to the core of what the CAP is all about. Is it a social policy to keep families on the land merely to preserve communities and the rural fabric? Or is it essentially about encouraging active farmers to increase production and provide a stable supply of reasonably priced food.
The largest beneficiaries of the SFP could certainly thrive without any subsidies at all, whereas those getting the smallest payments could benefit from every extra euro they receive.
Flexibilities
In a traditional agricultural country which has witnessed a dramatic decline in farmer numbers in the last two decades alone, there should be an all-out effort to make farming a viable occupation for all those still left working the land.
The Minister for Agriculture and the farm organisations should work to ensure that the flexibilities contained in the March 19 agreement are fully utilised to achieve the twin aims of supporting food production and supporting farmers in vulnerable areas.
The general public finds the intricacies of the Common Agricultural Policy unfathomable, but interest in safe food production and protection of the environment has probably never been higher.
Consumers deserve to know that all farmers, whatever their size, who devote their lives to these goals will be equitably supported from the public purse.
Joe O’Brien is the former Agriculture & Food Correspondent at RTÉ
