Budget 2024

My budget: Dairy farmer says budgetary package is a ‘cop out’

‘The Government promises us the moon and the stars, but the reality is totally different’

Budget 2024: Seán Kelly, a dairy farmer based outside Nenagh, Co Tipperary. He faces a €17,000 drop in farm income due to changes in the nitrates derogation

Hannah Quinn Mulligan
Tue Oct 10 2023 - 17:47

Young dairy farmer Seán Kelly said “there is nothing” in the budget that will replace the €17,000 drop in income he is facing due to the cut in the nitrates derogation.

“I already had to cull 12 cows last week due to complying with the cut in nitrates,” he told The Irish Times. “Calling a spade, a spade, this budget is a cop out, and there is nothing in it that will replace the loss of income impacting our farm family.”

Mr Kelly also expressed his dismay that the increased grant rate covering up to 70 per cent of costs for slurry storage announced under the budget will only apply to tillage and non-dairy farmers. Exporting slurry from dairy farms can help to relieve nitrates issues and some dairy farmers have agreements with tillage farmers who need the slurry to fertilise crops. However, Mr Kelly pointed out that dairy farmers could have also used the grant to help increase their own slurry storage facilities.

“Initially seeing the news about the extra grant for slurry storage really got my hopes up but then reading it, and that it was just for tillage farmers, completely dashed my hopes. The Government promises us the moon and the stars, but the reality is totally different.”

READ MORE

Consanguinity relief, which provides for the exchange of farmland between blood relatives at a reduced stamp duty rate of 1 per cent, will be extended by five years in the budget. “I would have liked to have seen a succession scheme to give the younger generation a chance. Macra had a lot as well about land mobility and transferring land not just to a son or a daughter but to a niece or nephew or someone not even related to them, just with a love of farming. It’s a missed opportunity.”

One of the other major items for farmers from the budget has been the change in terms for land leasing. Recent-inflated farmland prices were being blamed on business investors availing of generous tax reliefs for renting newly-purchased land. Under Budget 2024 new land owners will now only be able to avail of tax reliefs once they have owned the land for seven years. This is hoped to target reliefs at “active farmers”.

LATEST STORIES