Galway West TD Eamon Ó Cuív has warned that cuts to the CAP could be far higher than what is being forecast after 2020.
The next budget for the CAP which will run from 2021 – 2027 proposes a funding cut of 5 percent.
But Eamon Ó Cuív claims that this budget doesn’t factor for inflation, and the real cut could be as high as 20 percent.
To counter this, the Fianna Fáil TD said that the government needs to invest more in rural development projects like the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Schemes and environmental programmes like GLAS and the Areas of Natural Constraints Scheme.
Further reform is needed in the basic payment and greening scheme he said, as their current levels are based on outdated information.
“At the moment farmers are getting grants, based on the stocking density they had and the grants received in 2001.”
“It is totally unacceptable that a grant scheme that would be running to 2027 would be based on things that happened so long ago,” Mr Ó Cuív said.
He proposes that there should be a cap of €60,000 on both the basic payment and greening scheme and a levelling of payments per hectare.
he said this must recognise the”high environmental value of farming in some of the less productive farming areas that are of high ecological value and the need to keep farmers in these areas, particularly along the west coast of Ireland.”
The deputy concluded by saying that changes are needed and that the exchequer should continue to make up any shortfalls in funding “as farmers need this money to make farming profitable in Ireland.”
