Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 14 November 2013
27. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the steps he is taking to support agricultural development in less favoured areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48140/13]
View answerThe Rural Development Programme for Ireland has an allocation of €4.83 billion for the period 2007 – 2013 to fund various support schemes in the agricultural sector under the principles of competitiveness, improvement of the environment, land management and the development of the wider rural economy. Support for agricultural development in less favoured areas (LFAs) forms an important part of the Programme and these areas are supported both directly through LFA payments themselves and indirectly through schemes such as on farm investment and the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS), Agri-environment Options Scheme (AEOS) and Natura agri-environment schemes. Under the LFA scheme itself close on €1.43 billion has been spent to date, with €1.95 billion spent on the agri-environmental measures and €93.1m on the Natura Scheme.
Political agreement on the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was reached in June 2013. The agreement included an amount of €313 million in EU funding per year for Ireland under Pillar 2 (Rural Development). The text of the Rural Development regulation is being finalised and final agreement is not expected until late 2013. In advance of this, work on designing a new Rural Development Programme 2014-2020 is well underway. The regulation includes a menu of possible measures which may be included in the new RDP. Also under the new Direct Payment regime that will come into effect in 2015, there are a number of provisions which relate to less favoured areas of which the most significant is the issue of the redistribution of funds under Pillar 1 (Direct Payments) within a Member State.
Based on an analysis of disadvantaged areas, there is a clear correlation between areas with high levels of disadvantage and farmers who hold low value entitlements under the current Single Payment Scheme. While recognising the need to move away from an historical payments model, I resisted the proposal of the EU Commission to move to a ‘flat-rate’ payment by 2019. Such redistribution would have had a highly disruptive impact on Irish agriculture at a time when we are encouraging sustainable intensification in the agri-food sector as it strives to achieve the objectives set out in the Food Harvest 2020 strategy.
As an alternative, I proposed the ‘Internal Convergence’ model which, while initially retaining the link with current payments under the Single Payment Scheme, gradually moves all farmers towards a national average value over the five years of the new scheme. The purpose of this model is to achieve a gradual phased redistribution of payments between those who currently hold high value entitlements and those who hold low value entitlements. It will I believe introduce a fairer more equitable distribution of funds between farmers, will be of considerable value to farmers in areas of significant disadvantage, and will avoid the negative impact of a sudden move to a ‘flat-rate’.
