THE RETURN OF the annual Ploughing Championships recently brought with it a renewed focus on the future of agriculture. It was an opportune time for the various farm representatives to set out their stalls in advance of the upcoming budget and the ongoing negotiations on the taxpayer-supported Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

CAP is one of the foundations of European agricultural policy, and farmers across the EU have benefited from it since its creation in 1962. It has evolved significantly over that time and is the longest-serving EU policy. That evolution has included a greater focus on biodiversity and environmental supports, and CAP now plays a part in helping farmers to protect and restore biodiversity. 

That’s why I was struck recently to see the latest push from the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), which represents many dairy farmers, for a change in who qualifies for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) farm subsidies. The cohort it is unhappy about is what it deems to be “hobby farmers” or those with small holdings, and it’s asking for these subsidies to go only to “active farmers” only, namely those who it believes “produce food”. 

An idea first proposed earlier this year, the ICMSA suggests that farms stocked at less than one Livestock Unit (LSU) per hectare should not qualify for CAP subsidy, which could exclude tens of thousands of low-stock, low-intensity farmers from CAP income supports, many of whom are already “produce food” without any income supports whatsoever. This is while the average dairy farm income was over €150,000 last year.

To exclude nearly all part-time, low input farmers would be unfair........

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