IFA President John Bryan has stated that the Programme for Government must
deliver on the strong growth potential in agriculture and the agri-food
sector.

John Bryan welcomed the commitments to commercial farming and to defending
the CAP payments. He said, “the commitment to promoting greater land
mobility and involvement of young farmers can best be done by retaining
existing land transfer incentives and encouraging farm consolidation and
restructuring through Stamp Duty and CGT relief.”

He said, “The programme for Government also recognises the importance of
farm schemes to farm incomes and in particular the value of agri-environment
schemes. As part of the new Government’s ‘Jobs Budget’ to be announced
within the first hundred days, it is vital that the AEOS scheme is made
available to all farmers leaving REPS. Funding for AEOS both underpins
production and supports jobs through expenditure by farmers in the economy
on local inputs and services.”

The IFA President acknowledged the new Government’s commitment to exempt
Farm Diesel from any further increases in the Carbon Tax, saying, “this is
an important step to maintain our competitiveness”.  He added that the new
Government’s support for the Food Harvest 2020 recommendations is an
important recognition of the role of the agri-food sector in our economic
recovery.

Mr Bryan said farmers were very concerned at the proposal to move
responsibility for specialist agri-payments from the Department of
Agriculture to a new broad-ranging Payments and Entitlements Service. He
said, “The existing service is efficient and compares favourably with
systems in other EU countries.”

In welcoming the commitment for Fair Trade legislation for the retail
sector, Mr Bryan said that farmers will be looking to the new Government to
introduce this legislation quickly, to restore balance in the food supply
chain and ensure a fair price for producers.

On climate change, Mr Bryan said, “any new legislation must provide for
growth in farm output, based on Ireland’s low-carbon model of food
production.”

Mr Bryan concluded by welcoming the commitments to a 14,700 ha annual
planting target for forestry and the introduction of increased Refit Tariffs
for on-farm micro-energy generation.