EU SUPPORTS:FARMERS ARE to get advanced payments of €1 billion because of the poor harvest and subsequent difficulties, Minister for Agriculture and Food Brendan Smith announced at the National Ploughing Championships yesterday.
From today, 100,000 farmers will receive payments worth €250 million under the 2008 Disadvantaged Area Scheme and these cheques will be received within a matter of days.
The next major payout will take place from October 16th next when farmers can expect to receive a payout of €750 million, which is 50 per cent of their European Union Single Farm Payment (SFP).
The SFP is based on farm output in the first three years of this century and contains all the elements of the many schemes which were in operation then.
Since 2005, this payment has been made in the first week of December.
Mr Smith, who was one of the 183,000 people who attended the ploughing championships yesterday, said he had only yesterday received permission from the European Commission to pay the money early.
"We made the case for an advanced payment as early as August last based on the very difficult year for farmers with the heavy rain, with crops and livestock and harvesting in general - that there should be an advanced payment at the earliest possible time," he said.
"That will be a very welcome payment to farmers this year as the Single Farm Payment is a very important element of farm income and it will help farmers meet their ongoing costs and commitments and it is part of their family income as well," he said.
While the news was welcomed by the main farm organisations, the Minister warned that the Disadvantaged Area Payment would be the last that farmers will receive in cheque form, because all EU money will be paid electronically in future.
He said that for the last number of months the department had been advising farmers of the changes in payment methods and advised them to send on details of their accounts.
"At this stage, of the 102,000 asked to supply relevant details, 95 per cent of them have submitted all the relevant details that would enable their payments to be made from the 16th of October on wards," he said.
"I would just like to appeal to that 5 per cent who have not sent the necessary data to submit that to us as soon as possible, because it is mandatory now that payments under the SFP scheme go out electronically," he said. Farmers who did not submit their details were delaying their payments, he added.
While the Minister's early payment announcement went down well with farmers, his inability to get the EU to allow extra time for farmers to finish building waste management facilities before the end of this year has brought a barrage of criticism.
He told a press conference yesterday that the EU had already given Ireland "an exceptional exemption" of two years to allow the work be completed in the Farm Waste Management Scheme, and would not allow any more time to finish the works.
Farmers and contractors had been complaining that the poor weather, lack of trained building staff and the uncertainty about being able to qualify for the grants for doing the work was creating serious problems for about 10,000 of the 42,000 farmers who have applied for the grants.
The huge volume of traffic generated by the championships yesterday caused some delays, but amendments made to the Garda Traffic Plan following the opening day meant some shortening of the delays experienced on Tuesday.
The championships conclude this evening.