IFA to protest outside Coveney office

The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) is planning to protest outside the office of Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney in Cork on Saturday for the first time since he took office.

The plans were discussed at an emergency meeting of the IFA’s executive council yesterday, called to air concerns about negotiations on the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.

The EU Commission wants to move its single farm payment system from a method based on how much farmers produce, to one based on a flat payment per hectare, irrespective of how productive they are.

Farm groups such as the IFA have argued that this will reward farmers who do very little and penalise farmers who are the most productive.

The meeting heard strong condemnation of Mr Coveney, who is chairing the talks because Ireland is hosting the EU presidency. Afterwards, IFA president John Bryan said farmers were not buying “the Minister’s spin”.

Last week Mr Coveney said major progress had been made in the EU talks and farm ministers had agreed for the first time that the flat rate payment model wasn’t appropriate for everyone “and that we need to allow for a derogation from that model for countries that want that, like Ireland”. He said he also got other flexibilities endorsed.

Conceding too much

But Mr Bryan said the clear view from yesterday’s meeting was that Mr Coveney was not being straight with farmers and was conceding too much ground to the European Commission.

“What farmers want to see is a tougher approach that will deliver a deal for Irish farming that keeps our active farmers in business and our expansion plans on target.”

Mr Bryan said more than 75,000 farmers would lose out under current plans, with most of them facing losses of between 30 and 40 per cent of their existing single farm payment by 2019.

“This equates to cutting the incomes of over 60,000 of our most productive farmers by an average of at least 20 per cent.”