Budget to 'encourage' new generation of farmers

Agriculture:Next week's budget will contain a new taxation policy to encourage the restructuring of farms and help young people get into farming, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney suggested yesterday.

Speaking to the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association’s (ICMSA) agm in Limerick, he said the budget would introduce a strategic new taxation policy in relation to the consolidation of land and restructuring of farms.

“What we did last year in the budget strategically, around using the taxation system to try and encourage new behaviour, generational change in farming, encouraging farmers to form partnerships with each other, encourage more long-term leasing of land . . . we will be trying to build on a lot of those again in this budget,” he said.

Mr Coveney also said it would be “one hell of a job” for Ireland to get agreement on the overall EU budget for 2014 to 2020, when it took over the EU presidency in January.

Earlier, ICMSA president John Comer warned the Irish family farm structure was under threat and that such farms, if not protected, could be replaced by factory farms.

He also said some of the regulations and inspection applied to farmers should be switched to inspecting the margins and profits taken by “a handful of gigantic corporations” at the heart of the EU food sector. Their power “seems to be a matter of complete indifference to the EU, the same EU that can order me to move a single drain on my farm or set out the exact specifications for a ditch”, he said.

Mr Comer also described as “ludicrous” the decision of the Law Society to introduce a ban on solicitors acting for two or more parties in a property transaction, from January 1st.