Over £16.7 billion is to be pumped into the farming economy over the next five years, the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, announced yesterday.
He was in Castlebar, Co Mayo, to announce details of almost £4 billion of the money going to farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy rural development plan.
The £4 billion, half of which will come from the national Exchequer, will be paid to farmers who are retiring early, farming under the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS), in compensatory allowances and in forestry grants.
The new plan, which has just been agreed with Brussels, involved increased payments to farmers in the REPS, under which farmers agree to farm in an environmentally-sensitive way.
The Minister said there were increased payments available under the plan for holdings under 20 hectares where farmers would receive £129.95 per hectare. There would also be generous incentives for farmers in environmentally-sensitive areas.
The package, which would cost £1.6 billion, contained special payments for those involved in organic farming who could now get payments of up to £10,456 per annum and payments while in transition from conventional to organic systems.
Mr Walsh said under the old scheme 44,000 farmers had joined REPS. However, with the new incentives he expected that figure to almost double by 2006.
He said there were also major changes in the early retirement scheme under which 9,000 farmers had already handed over their lands under the old scheme. Some £602 million had been set aside for the new programme.
The need to enlarge the farm being taken over by transferees had been replaced by a requirement to demonstrate economic viability and in the new scheme part-time farmers could either retire or take over land from a retiring person.
He added that the annual pension had been increased under the new scheme to a maximum of £10,644 per annum and there would be pensions for displaced farm workers of £2,576.
Mr Walsh said the third programme, compensatory allowances for farmers in disadvantaged areas, would cost £1.7 billion, an increase of £360 million.
He said the changeover from an animal-based system to an area-based system had created winners and losers.
He pledged that those who lost out in the system - 28,000 - would be compensated for their losses and he would continue to press Brussels to make sure they did not lose out in the long run.
On the forestry package, Mr Walsh said the public funding involved was £542 million. Premiums and grants had been increased substantially and these were tax free for farmers.
The Minister said the plan was to increase plantings by between 14,000 and 20,000 per hectare every year for the duration of the plan.
The objective of the schemes was to maintain farming as the backbone of a vibrant rural economy and the basis for a quality food industry capable of competing in world markets while enhancing the rural environment and countryside.
In all, said Mr Walsh, farmers would receive payments of £16.7 billion between now and 2006 under the various schemes. They would continue to get well over £1 billion a year in cheques in the post, over £4 billion from the schemes he had just announced and the remainder from on-farm investment grants.
The two main farm organisations last night called for indexation of the payments and proper administration of the schemes. The schemes will be available to farmers within the next fortnight.