P. J. Sheehan
Question:116 Mr. Sheehan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development when he will correct the anomaly of relegating severely disadvantaged areas in the country to mountain land. [24813/01]
Written Answers. - Disadvantaged Areas Scheme.
The position is that the new area based compensatory allowance scheme agreed in July 2000 and approved by the European Commission in the context of the CAP rural development plan provides for area related payments as follows: more severely handicapped (lowland) – £70 per hectare up to 45 hectares; less severely handicapped (lowland) – £60 per hectare up to 45 hectares; mountain type land – £45 per hectare up to 60 hectares.
Where a farmer farms a combination of land categories he will be paid on more severely handicapped lowland first, less severely handicapped lowland next and the mountain grazings last.
If a farmer only has more severely handicapped lowland and-or less severely handicapped lowland his overall limit is 45 hectares. If he has a combination of more severely handicapped lowland and-or less severely handicapped lowland and some mountain type land, he will be paid on up to 45 hectares of lowland and up to an extra 15 hectares of mountain subject to an overall limit of 60 hectares. If a farmer has only mountain type land his overall limit is 60 hectares.
The new arrangements involve a cost of about £180 million in 2001 representing an increase of about £60 million over the old animal based headage scheme. It is now estimated that about 72,000 farmers stand to gain from these new arrangements, while some 27,000 farmers stood to lose money when compared with payments under the old animal based headage schemes. However, I negotiated a compensation package with the European Commission under which 90% of any loss would be made good this year. The payments now being made to farmers include this compensation for losses in appropriate cases.
It should also be noted that payments under the new scheme commenced on 21 September, as agreed in the Protocol on Direct Payments to Farmers and to date over £152 million has been paid to some 88,000 farmers representing almost 90% of total applicants. This compares very favourably with the figure of just over £72 million which was paid to farmers at this time last year under the old animal based headage schemes.
I am conscious of the difficulty which mountain classification causes for some farmers under the new area based compensatory allowance scheme and I have carried out a review of the scheme with a view to finding the most equitable arrangements with particular reference to farmers with mountain type land. In this connection I have recently made a formal submission to Brussels seeking approval for a revision of the scheme.
I should point out however that many farmers with mountain type land particularly those with sheep only or those who, because of their farming enterprise, were limited to payment on 30 livestock units under the old animal based system are in fact gaining substantially under the new scheme.