The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) have written to British Prime Minister Tony Blair asking him to drop his demands for reform of European agricultural subsidies.
IFA President John Dillon also urged Mr Blair to honour commitments Britain made in a 2002 deal on agricultural funding.
EU leaders failed to agree a budget for 2007 to 2013 this month after Mr Blair refused to surrender any of Britain's budget rebate without a commitment to reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (Cap).
The letter, dated June 24th, said: "It is very misleading of you to portray the
Cap budget as being so large that it deprives other important areas such as science and technology of an adequate share of public expenditure.
"Less than 1 per cent of total public expenditure in the EU goes to support agriculture. This is a very small price to ensure food price stability for Europe's 450 million people, and to provide guarantees to consumers in relation to quality, traceability and environmental protection."
Britain agreed with all other EU member states in 2002 to peg agricultural spending at current levels until 2013. "Political leaders who make commitments and then seek to break these commitments are guilty of a breach of contract with the people concerned," Mr Dillon wrote.
Mr said Dillon said Britain's position on reducing farm subsidies was "particularly prejudicial" towards Ireland , where he said agriculture and food production was a significant sector.
Ireland's economy is growing at almost twice the rate of its euro zone peers. However, most of that growth comes from areas such as services and construction. Agriculture accounted for about 4 per cent of Irish economic output in 2004 and just over 5 per cent of employment.