Sorca Clarke
Question:110. Deputy Sorca Clarke asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the proposals within the CAP strategic plan to support women in agriculture. [7002/22]
View answerThursday, 10 February 2022
Questions (110)
Oral answers (6 contributions)
I am asking this question on behalf of Deputy Clarke. It relates to the proposals within the CAP strategic plan to support women in agriculture. I thank my colleague Deputy Clarke for submitting this question. I commend the women in agriculture stakeholders group, which is relatively new but has clearly had an impact. There have been positive changes with regard to increasing the age limit for support from the enhanced targeted agriculture modernisation scheme, TAMS, and increasing the role of knowledge transfer groups and European innovation partnerships, EIPs. A clarification on how those changes will roll out would be helpful.
I thank Deputies Carthy and Clarke. The programme for Government recognised the need to do more on gender equality and includes a commitment to developing and implementing a new strategy for women and girls. Gender equality is a core principle of the European Union and improving gender balance, gender equality and increasing the participation of women in farming are, for the first time, part of the objectives for CAP strategic plans. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, SWOT, analysis in preparation for Ireland’s CAP strategic plan identified gender inequality as a weakness, while the economic benefit of increasing female participation was identified as an opportunity.
The needs assessment for the CAP strategic plan points to the need to increase opportunities for women in agriculture and business development. I have engaged extensively with stakeholders, including the women in agriculture group, on the future of CAP and on issues such as supports to promote gender equality. This has resulted in some innovative proposals to promote gender equality in the draft CAP strategic plan for Ireland. The package of measures includes, for the first time, an increased rate of grant aid of 60% for women farmers aged 40-66 years under the capital investment scheme; women-only knowledge transfer groups; and a call under the EIP initiative for proposals to examine women’s participation in agriculture.
Ireland's CAP strategic plan was submitted for approval to the European Commission on 31 December 2021 with a view to commencing delivery in 2023. Engagement with the CAP consultative committee and through bilateral meetings with the main representative bodies, including the women in agriculture stakeholders group which has been a very positive influence on this, will continue during this time and will provide updates on progress. In addition, the new stakeholder-led strategy for the Irish agrifood sector, Food Vision 2030, recognises the important contribution of women to the sector's long-term sustainability and includes a number of actions to promote and improve gender balance at all levels. This is the first time we have seen real efforts to address this cultural challenge, which has existed in farming for many years, and to help women play their equal part in our agrifood sector, particularly at primary producer and farm-gate level.
I welcome the progress that has been made. I have often said that there are lots of women farmers but the problem is they are not recognised as such. I just want to touch on one aspect, namely, the EIPs. The strategic plan states there will be potential for women-centred EIPs. Considering this is one of the three aspects of the plan in place to support women farmers, can the Minister give us an idea of how many of the operations will be specifically targeted to support women in agriculture? I understand there are 30 in total. What will the criteria be in terms for how those applications are judged? If we are to have only a handful, it is crucial they deliver concrete opportunities for women farmers that can be built and expanded upon.
It will depend on the quality of the applications and projects that come forward. One of the benefits of the European innovation projects is the capacity to promote innovation and new ideas and to pilot programmes. One of the key objectives is to use it as an initiative where we will examine women's participation in agriculture. We will then assess them based on the quality of proposals and their impact.
The Food Vision 2030 strategy recognises the important contribution of women to the sector's long-term sustainability. The strategy supports an enhanced role for women in the sector and recommends the establishment of female farmers' networks and other supports to better understand and meet the needs of Irish women farmers. It also proposes holding a national dialogue on women in agriculture and I have asked my officials to prioritise that action this year.
Working with the Minister of States, Senator Hackett and Deputy Heydon, we have in place initiatives that can result in real progress in the years ahead in women becoming a much stronger proportion at farmer level or primary producer level, as well as the progress we have seen over recent years across the food sector. We hope to see these initiatives, which we will continue to drive on, make real progress. We are proud to be in a position to place a real emphasis on this.
I welcome these positive steps. They are something for which my party has been calling for quite some time.
Moving beyond this part of the CAP process, it would send a strong signal today if the Minister could confirm his commitment to ensuring that the monitoring committee of CAP will have increased representation by women within its membership. The Minister and myself are at one in commending the work of the women in agriculture stakeholder group. It would be valuable if they were recognised for the work that they have done and it was ensured that they have a seat at the table going forward so that in future any deliberations on CAP are informed by a crucially important voice within Irish agriculture that has been silent for too long, that is, our women farmers.
I thank the Deputy. Right across the agrifood sector, and, indeed, State boards and committees that we establish, a real focus of Government is ensuring that we see greater female participation and representation at all levels, and, likewise, with the CAP consultative committees. Certainly, that is something that our focus will be on in the time ahead. It is something we will work with all stakeholders on to see how we can seek to improve representation and women's voices throughout the process.