Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 7 October 2015
8. Deputy Thomas Pringle asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will consider allowing farmers to be members of more than one knowledge transfer group to offset the potential for sheep groups to be undermined; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34203/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraThis question relates to the knowledge transfer groups and whether farmers will be allowed to participate in more than one group. There is a concern that farmers who have sheep and cattle will gravitate towards the cattle groups, and sheep farming could be undermined because of this.
This is an issue. At present, the rule is that a farmer can be in only one discussion group, because otherwise he or she will receive a double payment. A discussion group involves peer discussions and strategic talk, with advisers and farmers speaking to each other about how to improve their businesses. It also involves visits to farms to develop plans to improve practice. If a farmer is in more than one discussion group, he or she will receive multiple plans on the same farm and will be paid for all of them. We are trying to get as many farmers into discussion groups as we can, and if we have a lot of farmers in two discussion groups because they happen to have a sheep operation and a beef operation, we will keep other people out. We are looking at ways to have a practical outcome that would allow farmers interested in improving beef and sheep practices, or other multiple mixed farming activities, to benefit from being in more than one discussion group in terms of upgrading their facilities or their business. We are looking at how we can facilitate this within the rules. I do not want to pay farmers twice and keep other farmers out of discussion groups who might like to be in them. There are also issues regarding whether a father and son could be in two different discussion groups. They may already be in existing discussion groups which are now becoming formal discussion groups. We certainly do not want people to have to leave a discussion group model that may have been working very well over recent years and which may not have been paid. There are some practical implementation issues in terms of the roll-out of the knowledge transfer groups, but they are sensible practical things that we are trying to overcome with the farming organisations, and I think we will be able to come up with sensible conclusions on this.
I can see the difficulty the Minister has with double payments. Perhaps a sliding scale could be used. If a farmer has sheep and cattle and is in a cattle discussion group, the measures recommended in a farm improvement plan might be slightly different for the sheep element of the farming activity. There should be a way to get around this. When does the Minister expect to reach a conclusion in deciding whether it can be facilitated?
It is an ongoing conversation in the Department. Many farmers have said to me that they only want to be paid once but they would like to go into two discussion groups if possible because they want to make sure they are plugged into the latest knowledge on sheep as well as beef. This is not an unreasonable request. At present we are figuring out how to accommodate this with regard to paying the advisers and facilitators if farmers turn up who are not being paid for that discussion group. What is interesting is the appetite to be in discussion groups and the fact that farmers want to be in more than one because they have more than one operation and are asking how this can be facilitated. It is not necessarily about being paid for both; it is about getting the knowledge from both, and we are trying to facilitate this. It is a priority at present because we will roll out more discussion groups later in the autumn.
