Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 22 February 2024
64. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine what consideration his Department has given to measures to support succession and generational renewal in agriculture; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8155/24]
View answerThe last question is in the name of Deputy Kerrane. We will see how far we get.
What work has the Department under way when it comes to supporting farm succession and generational renewal? I commend Macra na Feirme in particular on doing a great deal of work on succession and supporting the next generation on to the farm. I was a little surprised that at the recent Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association conference, which the Minister attended, a number of the questions from the audience were not so much about ACRES, different schemes and late payments, but about the next generation and encouraging their children on to the farm, which was very interesting. What work has the Department under way with regard to these matters?
I thank the Deputy for raising what is a critical issue for the future of farming and agriculture. Supporting generational renewal is one of our main priorities as Ministers. It is also one of the great challenges facing farming, not just in Ireland but across the EU.
Worldwide, the average age of farmers is higher than everyone would like it to be. For this reason, the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, 2023 to 2027, cites generational renewal as one of its nine key objectives, recognising the need for the agricultural sector to attract skilled and innovative young farmers to provide quality food and environmental public goods. Ireland needs generational renewal in our agricultural sector and through our CAP strategic plan, we are providing strong, tangible support for young farmers in the period up to 2027. Among the measures introduced are a complementary income support scheme assisting young farmers establishing farming businesses with a payment of more than €175 per ha, subject to a maximum of 50 ha over five years; a national reserve scheme providing payment entitlements to young farmers on land for which they hold no entitlements, and-or a top-up of existing entitlements to bring them in line with the national average value, subject to a maximum of 50 entitlements per applicant; a higher grant rate of 60% for qualified young farmers under the TAMS capital investment measure; a collaborative farming grant to promote and support partnerships with young, trained farmers; and a succession planning advice grant to assist farmers aged over 60 to seek succession planning advice.
In my area of farm safety and farmer mental health and well-being, I supported a fascinating European Innovation Partnership, EIP, in the west of Ireland, which supported 30 families through the whole succession process. The report on that EIP is very valuable. We can scale up that initiative and do it at a much higher level to break down those barriers and a lot of the fear farmers have around issues, such as tax and other implications. It is about recognising that by having a conversation in a structured, timely way, and by supporting farmers and farm families to have that conversation, we can take an awful lot of the stress and concern out of succession, which means many succession conversations do not happen at present.
I acknowledge more grants and money are available to young farmers now than have ever been previously. However, there is a missing piece regarding the lack of a succession scheme, which Macra na Feirme has called for many times. Has the Department looked at the possibility of a retirement scheme for farmers? There is lots there for young farmers, but to enable older farmers to leave the enterprise to the next generation, they need to be supported financially.
Is this something the Department has looked at?
The Deputy is right in saying there is a range of agricultural reliefs. Some of these we take for granted, but if anything were ever to happen to the agricultural relief for young farmers, stamp duty relief and consanguinity duty relief, through which €274 million was provided in support in 2022, we would know very quickly how big a devastating impact that would have. I mention the 100% stock relief for young, trained farmers as well.
The approach of the Government and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has been to support the younger generations to take farming on and to incentivise this happening, like the support provided by the young, trained farmers element of the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, and those other supports that encourage this transition. I remember a past early retirement scheme where farmers from 55 to 65 were afraid to get caught walking across the yard carrying a bucket in case they were going to be disqualified and have to then pay everything back. Even when they reached 65, those farmers still had a lot to offer. That was also a very expensive scheme. We would, therefore, have to look, in terms of value for money, to see the best way of doing this and any tweaks to be made in this regard. We work with Macra na Feirme and look at the proposals it has suggested around succession. This is an area many people have a view on and I believe there is much more we can do to support farmers to take the fear out of the conversation around succession and to have this process happen in a planned way. This is always way better than succession happening in a time of crisis.
