CUTTING GRANTS to farmers in the budget will be counter-productive and will damage the one part of the economy which has been growing with confidence, TDs and Senators have warned.
The Oireachtas committee on communications, natural resources and agriculture was given the warning by representatives from the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) and Macra na Feirme at a meeting yesterday.
They had been invited to jointly give their views on the budget by the committee. These organisations are seldom seen under the one roof.
There was broad agreement between the organisations that agri- environmental schemes should be reopened, and funding should be retained at current levels for all other farm schemes. All agreed there should be no increased taxation on farmers and the tax reliefs and capital allowances should not be interfered with.
John Bryan of the IFA and Eddie Punch of the ICSA said the National Recovery Plan 2011-14 envisaged cuts of 20 per cent in the agricultural budget, far in excess of the average 4 per cent cuts expected of any other departments.
There was broad support for Macra na Feirme’s proposals put forward by its president Alan Jagoe for tax breaks and supports for young people establishing themselves on farms. He said latest figures showed only 5 per cent of farmers were under 35, whereas 28 per cent were over 65.
The need to have schemes whereby land could be transferred from parent to child without huge tax liability was a major necessity, he said.
The farm organisations stressed the damage which could be done if the Government damaged the agriculture sector, which was striving to meet the targets set out in the Food Harvest 2020 report.