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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 31 Mar 2015

Vol. 873 No. 1

Other Questions

GLAS Eligibility

Denis Naughten

Ceist:

153. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the criteria being considered for water vulnerable areas under the new green low-carbon agri-environmental scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12667/15]

Only approximately one sixth of farmers in Roscommon and east Galway will be in a position to apply under GLAS. Many parts of Roscommon and east Galway, particularly the northern part of the area, have heavy, water-logged soil. The southern part of the area is a limestone karst region. However, they are not considered to be water vulnerable areas. We have hit the headlines regarding the cryptosporidium in our water and many communities throughout Roscommon and east Galway have boil water notices in place. We have issues regarding trihalomethane, an organic contaminant, in our water. Why are we examining only water courses and not also aquifers and heavy soils?

Under the rural development regulations, the protection of water quality is one of the priorities to be addressed in the agri-environment programmes of all member states. GLAS is Ireland's new and innovative agri-environment scheme. Two GLAS actions are specifically designed to address the risk of what is known as point pollution in rivers, that is, pollution directly related to bovine access. These actions are protection of water courses and riparian margins. To achieve the maximum environmental benefits from these measures, my Department, in consultation with the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and using data supplied by the agency, has identified certain reaches of rivers throughout the country categorised as high status water and vulnerable status water. Farmers with these areas will receive tier 1 or tier 2 priority, respectively, in the approval process.

In both cases, the identification of the areas concerned was completed using an EPA data set. Spatial queries were run against the data set to identify the land parcels held on my Department's land parcel identification system, LPIS. The criteria used by my Department were that the land in question had to be declared by the applicant as "forage" on the 2014 single payment application, it had to be within a 15 m buffer of the water course identified in the EPA data set, and the applicant had to have bovines in either 2013 or 2014. For vulnerable water areas, the holding had to be identified as comprising at least 50% wet soils. The classification of all holdings in this fashion is stored on my Department's new, online GLAS system and is currently being used by farmers and their advisers to identify the actions required, as well as the tier position they hold.

The Deputy was in contact with some of the technical staff in my Department on this issue during the past week and they briefed me on that.

I will come back to the Minister on that.

I thank the Minister for that briefing, which clarified a number of these issues for me. However, the fundamental issue is that many parts of County Roscommon are not considered to have heavy soils. Even if the river is low-status, farmers will not be eligible under this provision in GLAS. In other parts of the county and east Galway where there are heavy soils, eligibility is confined to farmers who are "méarning" water courses. There are many karst limestone regions in my part of the country where rivers travel underground. No provision has made for them. They are vulnerable areas - we have evidence of this in the series of boil water notices in place throughout County Roscommon and east Galway - but no recognition is being given under the scheme for these catchments. Why are underground rivers excluded and overground rivers included? Why is it that only pristine overground rivers will automatically result in access to the scheme if a farmer is "méarning" the river but there has to be poor-quality water and poor marginal land for them to be eligible where the rivers are not up to standard?

It is wrong to say that we are not protecting underground watercourses. Under cross compliance provisions and other EU directives, farmers have serious responsibilities in respect of protecting them and they are very much aware of that. We can only do so much with GLAS. We had to prioritise and we sat down with EPA officials and spoke to representatives of the NGO community and farming organisations. We tried to put together a straightforward scheme that is easy to understand, implement, enforce and so on. There are other environmental challenges that need potentially to be promoted, which are not covered by GLAS. The scheme does not do everything but it does a great deal and, in the same way that REPS and AEOS did not do everything, they had a function.

We are using EPA maps which identify high-status and low-status watercourses. In each case bovines must be present and the parcel must be contiguous with the watercourse. In the case of low status, a further factor is employed to make it a qualifying vulnerable site - that is, the holding must have at least 50% wet soils. We can identify these parcels on our LPIS database and, from an enforcement point of view, that makes sense. While it is not perfect, we are doing a great deal for watercourses.

The difficulty is quite a number of boil water notices are in place in County Roscommon and east Galway. The source of the contamination is hard to know and it will never be proven. At the same time, an environmental scheme is being introduced and approximately one third of those eligible under AEOS and approximately one third of those who were eligible under REPS will be able to apply under GLAS. This means that only approximately one sixth of farmers in east Galway and County Roscommon will be in a position to apply for inclusion in the first two priority areas. Those who fall outside them are unlikely to receive financial assistance in this regard and they will not be encouraged to go forward. We are losing out significantly because of the criteria under the scheme, which are focused more on tillage regions than on vulnerable farms with bovines and sheep in the west, particularly in an intensive production area such as County Roscommon and east Galway.

Deputy Naughten suggests that GLAS is designed for arable farmers. When one talks to arable farmers, one does not get that reaction. We are prioritising commonage farmers here. We are prioritising farmers in SACs. If anything, there has been an emphasis on grass-based agriculture in disadvantaged areas.

It is simply not true to say that only a third of farmers in AEOS can apply for this. Many more farmers will be going into GLAS than ever went into AEOS. We hope there will be 30,000 in the first tranche and there will be another 20,000 next year, to bring it up to 50,000.

Roscommon and Galway.

AEOS was only ever a fraction of that.

The Minister is a national politician.

We cannot design a scheme for one county. We have to design a national scheme that has something in it for every county.

There is a lot in this for Roscommon, Galway, Donegal and the west. If one looks at the process around the design of GLAS and where we have taken most time in terms of consultation, amendment and change, it has been all about ensuring we are facilitating the west. I do not accept that criticism.

Dairy Sector

Helen McEntee

Ceist:

154. Deputy Helen McEntee asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the current status of appointing a Teagasc dairy adviser for County Meath; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12805/15]

What is the current status of the appointment process for a Teagasc dairy adviser for County Meath?

Deputy McEntee has been raising this matter consistently with me for the past few months. I very much appreciate the important contribution the Teagasc advisory service is making in assisting the development of the agriculture and food sector and in providing advice and support to farm families, particularly at this time, given the opportunities there are for expansion and growth. The service engages with 60,000 farmers per annum, of whom approximately 40,000 are contracted clients. We continue to require a strong input from Teagasc advisers to support sustainable and profitable farming into the future.

My Department has been actively working with Teagasc to ease staffing difficulties in the organisation. Within the constraints of the moratorium, more than 60 permanent appointments were authorised on an exceptional basis since 2009. A further 20 contract teachers were approved in the agricultural colleges to meet the demand for green certificate courses. Teagasc also employs 190 non-Exchequer funded contract staff outside the moratorium framework to deliver advisory and research programmes. The announcement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in budget 2014 regarding delegated sanction for staffing arrangements will provide greater discretion to Departments and State agencies over staffing levels, but strictly within an overall pay framework. My Department has submitted a pay and staff numbers strategy to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for consideration in respect of the State bodies that operate under the aegis of the Department, including Teagasc. It is expected that the delegated sanction arrangements will be finalised shortly and will provide some flexibility to fill critical posts within agreed pay ceilings.

In the interim, my Department, in conjunction with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, has approved Teagasc to fill a small number of front-line posts in the advisory service. The allocation of advisers to particular locations is an operational matter for Teagasc to determine, but I understand it intends to appoint a dairy adviser to the Louth-Meath-Dublin region shortly.

I thank the Minister for his response and am glad to hear Teagasc hopes to appoint someone. I know it not something the Minister can simply sanction. There are rules and regulations, and with the moratorium on recruitment of staff, there are certain routes that must be taken. However, I come from a county that has a very dedicated farming community, in particular a very dedicated dairy farming community, which has been left without an adviser since last August, when the previous adviser left. It is not good enough that they have been left since then and that we have not had some sort of response until now, especially as we are coming into April. The timing could not be worse, with the abolition of quotas. Now more than ever, farmers need the advisers there to ensure they have advice on how it affects them, how they may need to adapt, and how they can benefit from it. Some of the farmers have said they will withhold their subscriptions from Teagasc, which none of us wants to see happen. I am glad to hear that there is movement on it. I ask the Minister to continue treating it as a matter of urgency.

Meath has approximately 520 dairy farms, many of which will be planning for expansion and growth. All of these will want to do so on the back of a good business plan, working with their advisory service to ensure it is done in a way that is sustainable, profitable and well managed. Teagasc faces multiple challenges, including helping people to put GLAS applications together. It has a strong research focus with places such as Moorepark. It also faces a very strong educational challenge, and we have looked for more staff for it because our agricultural colleges are more in demand than they have ever been. The advisory service is a crucial link between all Teagasc does and on-farm activity. This is why I agree with the Deputy that the ambitions of the farmers in Meath in terms of improving their farm practices mean we need to have an advisory service which is fit for purpose. This is why I have spoken to Teagasc about it, and I understand there will be some movement on it soon.

Agrifood Sector

Bernard Durkan

Ceist:

155. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to ensure current and future opportunities for the agrifood industry in the wake of conflicting issues, such as opportunities arising for new beef markets and the abolition of milk quotas and constraints arising from carbon reduction measures at European Union and global level; the degree to which he expects to be in a position to continue to expand the industry here while at the same time maintaining good practice in respect of carbon emissions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12736/15]

This question relates to similar questions raised by other Members. It attempts to emphasise the importance of achieving the targets for the dairy and beef industries and at the same time recognising the need to comply with carbon reduction measures to the greatest extent possible in the jurisdiction.

I thank the Deputy for asking the question. We have already had a discussion on it. When the Food Harvest 2020 targets were set and the policy was put in place by the previous Government, the three buzzwords were smart, green and growth. This is fundamentally what we are trying to do in agriculture. We are trying to get growth while ensuring it is based on innovation and new and better ways of doing things and in a way that is green and protects the environment, watercourses, biodiversity, rural life and rural incomes in the best way we possibly can with regard to reducing the emissions intensity of food production systems.

We are the only country in the world that is auditing farmers and how they run their farms from a sustainability point of view. This is what has been rolled out over the past two years on beef farms and what is being rolled out on dairy farms. Farmers sign up to outsiders coming in and auditing them once every 18 months. This is a sustainability audit system which has international certification.

We are planning growth and expansion between now and 2020. A group of people is planning for growth between now and 2025 to replace the Food Harvest 2020 strategy. The sector constantly needs a ten-year horizon for ambitions so that we all know where we are going and what we are trying to finance with regard to growth and strategy. By the middle of the summer we will launch a new 2025 strategy for agrifood expansion and growth and technological advancement. A major part of the challenge is sustainability. People should not simply state that as our target is to reduce emissions by 20%, agriculture must apply that 20% reduction. It is a much more complex argument than this. I assure the Deputy we will do everything we can and we will be a global leader in finding ways to reduce the emissions intensity of our food production systems, but we will allow the country to fulfil its full potential in terms of the volumes of food we are capable of producing from the national resources we have.

I thank the Minister for his reply. We do not doubt his intentions and his goodwill in this regard. Neither do we doubt the intentions of the agricultural Commissioner. It may well come to pass that another Commissioner with other intentions may decide to introduce a measure in the equation which could put pressure on the Minister and the agrifood sector in the country, particularly in the context of EU-US trade negotiations.

Arising from that, will it be possible to ensure we convince our colleagues throughout Europe to facilitate and take into account not only the measure about which the Minister has just spoken, but also the degree to which carbon reduction is in place in this country at present and has been for some considerable years, far in advance of most other European countries?

We have been making those arguments quite successfully. The EU plans to set very ambitious targets for 2030. I think it is right to do so. We have insisted that the complete picture from land use will be factored into those targets. We have had a very active afforestation programme, for example. This has essentially involved planting forests on agricultural land. That has a significant carbon sink value and should compensate for emissions coming from herds in other parts of agriculture. If targets are to be set for agriculture, those targets have to factor in agriculture and land use. They have to factor in the positives as well as the negatives with regard to emissions and carbon sinks, etc. Before Christmas, we successfully got that wording into the European Council decision on the setting of targets. We reaffirmed that recently at the Environment Council when one or two countries sought to remove the land use element from what is factored into the targets. The Commission has confirmed that it is very much there now. This is good news from an Irish perspective.

I welcome the Minister's comprehensive reply. If someone in some other commission has a brainstorm and tries to increase the area of wetlands in this country, perhaps in an attempt to create a European carbon sink, that will obviously have a detrimental impact on our agrifood sector. In view of our economy's high dependency on the agrifood sector, is the Minister completely satisfied that he will be in a position to ensure that sector continues to grow? Will he take account of the development of non-fossil alternative fuels in this jurisdiction to reinforce his argument and intensify the case on behalf of the Irish economy?

Agriculture faces and will continue to face challenges with regard to the sustainability, environmental consequences and management of food production. That is why we have special areas of conservation and we protect species like pearl mussels, breeding waders and hen harriers. The restrictions that are imposed on farmers to protect vulnerable species are very controversial in some parts of the country.

They are all in the west.

This is part of the challenge of farming in the European Union.

It is also part of the compensation package that we hope to be able to provide to farmers for those restrictions to protect valuable wildlife. That is an important part of farming here and people need to understand it. Having said that, I intend to take the significant opportunities that are available in the different sectors. Last week, we launched an energy crops support package for farmers who are willing to plant wood coppice, which is basically willow. It suits certain types of land and can produce a very profitable margin if it is grown correctly and in the right proximity to where it is to be used and burned. We are supporting all these sectors. Energy crops will be part of the agrifood story in Ireland.

GLAS Applications

Éamon Ó Cuív

Ceist:

156. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of farmers who have applied to date to join the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme; the closing date for applications to be accepted in 2015; his plans to extend this closing date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12715/15]

There is significant concern that the target set by the Minister of getting 30,000 farmers to join the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme this year will be impossible to achieve.

I note in today's Irish Independent that the Minister has extended the closing date already as he has realised his targets were ridiculous and the 30 April deadline was not achievable for 30,000 applications. This deadline has been extended to 22 May. Will he not consider extending that to 15 June as there is no physical way 30,000 applications can be made by 22 May?

There is actually but we will wait to see how it goes.

I acknowledge the importance of the role of agricultural advisers in GLAS, the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme. Their professional expertise and experience are vital to the preparation of reliable GLAS applications that fully comply with regulatory and scheme requirements. That is why I have made it mandatory for all GLAS applications to be submitted by an approved GLAS adviser.

The negotiations with the European Commission on the scheme's details were long and protracted, which is why the earliest date I could open it was 23 February 2015. The original deadline set for submission of applications was 30 April. Admittedly, this was tight but there was no real opportunity to extend this without impinging upon the deadline for direct payment applications generally, a deadline fixed for many years by regulation as 15 May.

However, I have been working closely with the European Commission to get this regulatory deadline extended and I am delighted we have achieved some flexibility on this front. While we do not yet have the Commission's proposal, it is my intention to extend the GLAS deadline to 22 May, if possible, which will provide significantly more time to submit applications for this first tranche of GLAS.

To date, I am pleased a total of 9,119 applications have been created on the GLAS online application system. We are almost at the 10,000 mark and there is still quite some time to go. It is possible to push the basic payment and GLAS deadline back to the middle of June but there would be consequences to that. I am determined to get our basic payments out to farmers at the earliest possible date in mid-October. If we push the applications dates back, then the processing becomes much more difficult with the time available. I am also anxious that there would be at least a week separation between when the GLAS deadline and the basic payment closes. We do not want them all coming in on the same deadline with farmers who leave it to the last minute trying to get all their basic payment and GLAS applications in on the same day. We do not want our backs up against the wall but to have a little bit of breathing space, which is why it is the end of May for the basic payment scheme and a week earlier, 22 May, for GLAS applications. There is some flexibility with these dates but I would like us to achieve our deadlines by these dates too.

Will the Minister confirm that the 9,119 refers to the number who have initiated a GLAS application but in no way reflects the number who have a completed application? One has to register at the beginning of the process. Will the Minister tell me how many completed applications there are for GLAS?

Last week, the Minister said there were 477 accredited GLAS planners. As there is much work in these plans, these planners will probably produce 40 plans each, a plan per working day. This only gives 20,000 plans by the current deadline. To my knowledge, there are only 9,000 completed plans so far. Will the Minister accept there is no way he will have 30,000 completed plans by 22 May? Is there a legal possibility under the regulation to have a later closing date for GLAS than for the basic payment?

I asked the same question but my understanding is one cannot have a later date. As one is linked to the other, the GLAS application has to be finalised first and then the basic payment after that. We could push them back into June but that then has consequences for registration.

I would expect planners to get far more than one application per day. The fact that an average of about 700 applications are being received per day is proof of that for starters. Effectively, there are two months left. Many planners would have prepared in advance. They knew what was coming, had a pretty good idea what GLAS was going to look like and have already done an awful lot of work. They have put their applications up on the system and are waiting to simply submit. There are over 9,000 applications ready for submission, all the work having been done to date. We are making good progress. I am not saying everything is perfect, because it is not. We are looking for people to make constructive criticisms of the application process so that we can keep improving it as it goes along. If anybody had suggested that by this point in time we would have nearly 10,000 applications ready for submission, most people would have been pleasantly surprised. That is where we are. We are making good progress and will continue to monitor it tightly as time goes on.

I would not have been surprised that there were 10,000 registrations on the system. The Minister studiously avoided telling me how many of those are completed applications or how many have just been initiated. I would have expected a big flush in the beginning because of people having done the preliminary work. Could the Minister send me the figure regarding the number of farmers who have submitted a completed final application?

In a reply last week, the Minister told me that there was €1.4 billion for agri-environment schemes under the present CAP, including transitional payments. He might tell me how much of that €1.4 billion relates to the GLAS scheme as opposed to transitional payments.

In the event that there are fewer than 30,000 applications, will the Minister consider approving the applications and letting them become operational as they are processed rather than waiting for everybody to be processed before they are all let go on the same day? The big advantage of that is that people would get payments far earlier and would get a significantly bigger payment this year than if they are all held back until the last application is processed.

I am not sure how the Deputy proposes I prioritise them.

If there are fewer than 30,000, the Minister will not need to prioritise-----

Many farmers in the Deputy's area will be finalising commonage GLAS plans after they have applied and after the deadline. They might be finalising those plans into July. Is the Deputy suggesting that we discriminate against those people in terms of the opening date? I hope he not suggesting this. The point I am making is that we will get this system approved as soon as we can but we will not discriminate against anybody in the process and we will be as fair as we can. When GLAS is fully up and running it will cover around 50,000 farmers and we will be spending about €260 million per year on them. This is a big environmental scheme. This year we have estimated about €20 million, because we know we are not going to be accepting people approved into GLAS until about September, so farmers will only be getting payments for the last few months of the year.

How much of the €1.4 billion relates to GLAS?

The Deputy can do the numbers.

Deputies Martin Ferris and Seán Kyne are not present, so I now call Deputy Naughten.

Questions Nos. 157 to 159, inclusive, replied to with Written Answers.

Single Payment Scheme Administration

Denis Naughten

Ceist:

160. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to address the concerns of old young farmers regarding the distribution of entitlements under the Single Payment Scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12670/15]

I know time is limited. I have two specific questions. Will the Minister introduce additional flexibility into the force majeure scheme to improve the single farm payment and bring it to a viable level for farmers who established prior to 2008 with poor entitlements? Can the Minister, in conjunction with the Minister for Finance, see if a mechanism can be found to allow farmers who established prior to 2010 to avail of some additional incentive for on-farm investment? I am talking primarily about those who did not get into the installation aid scheme. Could there be some incentive to access that is similar to TAMS? Could there be a mechanism for those who established prior to 2008 to top up low payments where they are unable to avail of the new definition of a young farmer?

In respect of the finance issue, we had a very successful engagement with the Department of Finance last year from a taxation perspective. As the Deputy might remember, that resulted in a very comprehensive tax package on budget day. I think there were 23 measures, many of which were new. The total tax package was worth about €300 million for farmers. We did some very strategic things, particularly around rental land, moving away from conacre towards long-term leasing and so on. That engagement on agricultural taxation is continuing. It was not the case that it continued only until the last budget and then was shut down. We are continuing to look at new ways in which we can do strategic things such as encouraging generational change, partnerships and other efficiency and modernisation and sustainability programmes within agriculture. We will see where that takes us.

We are looking at the area of force majeure and how we can prioritise people in terms of using the national reserve most effectively, particularly with regard to people who under the Scottish derogation rules would be able to get the single farm payment and who might not have had it for a series of reasons over the past number of years, or farmers who would have been farming on "naked" land. We will look at how we can use that, but I do not want to give an exact commitment on individual cases at this stage.

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