As it emerged in Brussels that the EU Commissioner, Dr Franz Fischler, is determined to press forward with dramatic reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Church of Ireland has warned these could be a serious threat to rural Ireland, North and South.
A statement by the Church in Society Committee of the church on the mid-term review of the CAP said there was an urgent need for more public awareness of likely considerable changes.
"The process known as 'decoupling', whereby the subsidisation of agriculture will no longer be linked to the production of crops and the rearing of animals will, we believe, inevitably cause a further migration from the countryside unless adequate steps are taken to counterbalance such forces," the statement said.
"In addition, if 'modulation' is implemented there is a risk that, in time, up to one-fifth of EU funding currently received by Irish farmers by direct payment could be diverted to a central pool in Europe, with no guarantee that it would return to Ireland for rural development," it went on.
The inducement to farmers, especially the younger ones, to stay on the land was already gravely affected by the sharp reduction in farm incomes.
"Furthermore, the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union, which we strongly support, cannot but have an adverse effect on the share of EU funding directed at farmers in Ireland," it added.
"Unless effective measures are taken, both at national and European levels, to promote rural development, we foresee a further deterioration in the sustainability, not to speak of the quality, of rural life in many parts of Ireland, with consequent impoverishment of many communities," it said.
"The implications of what may well result from the current mid-term review of the workings of the Common Agricultural Policy are very considerable, and we have been made particularly aware of how they may impinge on the life of our parishes," the statement added.