The number of farmers who intend to vote against the Nice Treaty has grown by eight percentage points in the last month, according to a poll which will be published later today in the Irish Farmers Journal.
The poll, conducted last week, also showed a drop in the Yes vote, from 47 per cent in the last poll to 45 per cent in the poll to be published today. The second in a series of three commissioned by the Irish Farmers Journal, the poll of 400 farmers was carried out by the Response Interaction Centre by phone.
Asked how they intended to vote in the referendum, 45 per cent of the farmers polled said they intended to vote for the treaty, a drop of two points on the previous poll. Twenty-seven per cent of the sample said they would be voting against the treaty, an increase of eight points on the previous poll.
This poll found that the 26 per cent of those intending to vote No believed the treaty would have a negative effect on farming while a substantial 26 per cent intended to avail of the opportunity to register a protest.
Fourteen per cent declared themselves to be against the expansion of the Union and 12 per cent were concerned that smaller states such as Ireland would be marginalised in the working out of the treaty.
Eight per cent were concerned about farming bureaucracy.
The poll also found that 28 per cent of Yes voters regarded enlargement as positive, 20 per cent were convinced of the value of the EU for Ireland and 14 per cent believed that it was time for Ireland to make a contribution to the EU. Eight per cent of the Yes voters said that the Government recommending a Yes vote influenced them.
Of those undecided, 19 per cent were concerned about the negative effect the treaty would have on farming, 18 per cent attributed their indecision to a lack of information, while 16 per cent had reservations about enlargement.
The pollsters said it was significant to note that the tactics of some No campaigners in relation to highlighting issues of immigration has had little impact, with only 3 per cent of both No and undecided voters citing this as an influencing factor.
However, the poll showed that there should be a large turnout from the farming community as 95 per cent of them said they intended to vote, up seven percentage points from the last poll.