A TOTAL of €434,042 has been paid to 283 farmers who applied to the Department of Agriculture for money from the €2 million fodder aid scheme to replace feed damaged by the floods.
Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith, gave details of the payout to the annual general meeting of the IFA at Bluebell, Dublin yesterday.
Later today, he said, he would be meeting potato growers who say they have lost €15 million worth of crops because of the freeze up which followed the flooding late last year.
He said he appreciated the value of the agri-food sector to the economy and it had a critical role to play in the economic recovery of the country.
Mr Smith said he was well aware of the considerable decline in farm incomes over the past two years and hoped this would be reversed in 2010.
He invited the IFA to participate in the formulation of the 2020 Strategy plan which was being compiled to address all the challenges being faced by the sector.
The newly elected IFA president, John Bryan welcomed the strong statement from the Minister that he was fully committed to defending the Single Farm Payment for Irish farmers in the forthcoming 2013 CAP negotiations.
He also welcomed Mr Smith’s announcement of a new code of practice to be brought in on a voluntary basis shortly to regulate the increasing concentration of power of the supermarket multiples.
Mr Smith said this will become statutory under new legislation to be moved by the Tánaiste, Mary Coughlan, in the coming Oireachtas term.