Farm organisations yesterday moved to protect and strengthen the Early Retirement Scheme (ERS) for farmers, which Macra na Feirme said had led to the transfer of 12,000 farms since it was first introduced in 1992.
Macra president Colm Markey said current applications for the scheme had dropped into the low hundreds because the level of pension on offer was too low and was not sufficiently attractive to encourage older farmers to avail of it.
Speaking at the National Ploughing Championships in Cork, he called on the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mary Coughlan, to increase the minimum rate of pension to €18,000 and to index link that figure.
The Irish Farmers' Association rural development spokesman, Padraic Divilly, said it was up to the Government to ensure the scheme was properly supported financially.
He also called for a minimum payment of €18,000 per annum for the retiring farmer, and said the scheme should be part of an integrated package which would include increased young farmer installation aid.
Fine Gael agriculture and food spokesman Denis Naughten said the Government should look at new ways to encourage the transfer of land to young farmers, rather than abandoning the scheme altogether.
"While there has been a significant fall-off in the numbers entering the ERS, the Government should not throw the baby out with the bathwater," he said.
"There is no doubt that the ERS needs to be significantly restructured to cater for the changes brought about by the introduction of the Single Farm Payment, but that should not mean that we abandon the principle of the scheme, which is to release land to younger, progressive farmers."
The FRS was introduced by the then EU commissioner for agriculture, Ray Mac Sharry, in 1992 and offered farmers the opportunity to retire at 55, freeing up land for younger farmers.
Meanwhile, the Green Party spokeswoman on agriculture, Mary White, last night called on the National Ploughing Association to investigate the possibility of using shuttle buses powered with biofuel at the National Championships in Carlow next year, to bring people from car parks to the site.