Farmers were advised yesterday that they had "nothing to fear in the short term" from EU enlargement.
Mr Brendan Kearney, an agricultural economist, was speaking at the publication of a series of booklets by the Institute of European Affairs dealing with key aspects of enlargement.
In his publication, The Implicat-ions for Agriculture, Mr Kearney said the inclusion of the 10 central and eastern European countries would increase the EU agricult-ural area by more than 43 per cent.
It would also double the numbers working in agriculture because this sector represented a relatively large share of applicant countries' economies.
But, he said, farm productivity was low in the 10 countries. One had to look at agriculture in Ireland in the 1920s to find comparable levels.
In overall terms, he said, the impact of enlargement would be broadly neutral - or slightly positive or negative - over a range of issues with respect to Irish agri-food economic interests.
"The impact of enlargement will only effectively emerge over the duration of the next financial perspective, which could run to 2013," he said.
He said the Commission's statement of last week on the phasing in of direct payments to farmers in the 10 countries indicated that there would be no major cost factor in this area until after 2006.
The emphasis in last week's document was on the social aspect of payments to farmers and other rural dwellers and there was a heavy emphasis on rural development and structural funding.
Funding would be on a "hand-up" rather than a "hand-out" basis and this would be vital for farmers. He said the Common Agricultural Policy would be under attack in the world trade negotiations, and there would be "some pain" because of that.