An EU pledge to Irish beef farmers that they would not lose money if they chose to break the link between premiums and production has been broken and they could lose €95 million, a Dáil committee has been told.
John Dillon, president of the Irish Farmers Association, told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food that 29,000 farmers faced premium cuts of up to €3,295 each.
He said some farmers, who had not changed their stocking levels since the introduction of the single farm payment system, could lose up to €23,000 because beef premium payments have been cut back.
"This is a clear breach of the pledge given ... by former commissioner for agriculture and food Franz Fischler that no farmer would lose any money because of the mid-term review of the Agenda 2000 agreement," he said. "We opted for full decoupling of production from supports because of this, and now we find that farmers who applied for the special beef premium will lose €53-€78 per animal."
John Bryan, chairman of the IFA's national livestock committee, said these cuts represented, in some cases, a 50 per cent cut in the profit beef farmers could take, as their profit now represented 60 per cent of the EU premium. Members of the committee expressed support for the IFA stand, in which over 1,300 farmers attended a rally in Co Laois last week.
Irish lamb has gone on sale in over 1,000 French stores. The promotion is part of Bord Bia's major sales drive on the French market, following the success of the campaign in 2004.