Published: Wednesday, 21st October, 2009 5:00pm

Farmers receive €43.8m in early SFP

After gloom on the farming scene for months, the weather has improved and now 8,000 farmers in Cavan and Monaghan are to receive €43.8m in early single payments.

Minister Brendan Smith said the legal date for paying the single payments is December 1. "Earlier this year I sought permission from the European Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel to bring forward the payments. Last year I succeeded in getting permission to issue 50% of the single payments, as an advance payment on October 16, a year ago.

"This year I got permission to advance 70% of the single payment, and bring it forward from December 1. It's a substantial payment and one that is necessary to support farm incomes at the present time, due to the difficult year we've gone through, with prices bad all over the world," said the minister.

"The markets are bad, dairying has gone through a difficult time and beef is also going through a bad time. This is due to the decline in consumer demand throughout the world. The consumer does not have the price to pay for good top quality product," said Minister Smith.

He added that "the major multiples are taking a bigger share of the price that they should be doing. There is not a fair distribution between the primary producer, the processor and the retailer. That imbalance in the food chain needs to be rectified", and in conjunction with the tánaiste, he is working to bring in a code of practice "so that everybody involved in producing, gets a fair slice of the action".

He added that there has been a big decline in all of Europe in the prices paid to farmers for their products. "Overall there has been less than 3% of a decline in food prices throughout Europe and there is not fair play."

He pointed out that this is an issue he has raised within the EU and at home. "When I met all the major multiples, I said to them, you source top quality Irish food here in our county, that food is produced to the highest standards and to a high nutrition level, it is also produced with Ireland having the top animal husbandry and best farming practices, and also the best practices in our processing facilities."

Multiples

Minister Smith said the multiples have a responsibility to consumers as well as to their shareholders, but they also have a responsibility to the producer.

He approached the banks recently because they are not freeing up credit as they should. "Individual farmers and the farming organisations spoke to me about the lack of credit in the system. I brought all the major banks in to see me through the Irish Federation of Bankers. The head agri-advisor in each of those banks, together with their support staff, came and met us last week. I outlined the fact that farming is going through a difficult time, that there are pressures on income and that the banks are not releasing enough credit."

He also pointed out to them that the Department of Agriculture would be releasing €800m to the farming community. "Ten days ago we released €200m in Disadvantaged Area payments and we will be issuing major grant aid under REPS at the end of November/early December, and in early January we will be issuing payments amounting to €245m under the Farm Waste Management Scheme."

When asked if things like the Rural Transport Scheme would be retained in the light of a tight budget, Minister Smith said his colleague Minister Noel Dempsey had already indicated that he is anxious to retain the transport scheme: "We are all aware of the value of community projects all over Ireland.

"Every department will be affected and we have begun examining the estimates provision for each department for next year and I have to say it is a difficult job. But we have no option but to reduce expenditure and as Minister Lenihan has said there is little room for increased taxation."