WEST Cork farmers have urged the EU to follow through on plans set out in the recently announced ‘Vision for Agriculture and Food’ by funding the CAP budget and simplifying regulations.
The EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Christophe Hansen, released the document last week, which outlines his plan for the agri-food sector until 2040.
It includes plans to reduce the amount of red tape for farmers by simplifying policies, and deliver an agri-food system that is attractive, competitive, sustainable and fair for both current and future generations.
It states that geopolitical tensions, effects of recent crises, extreme weather and environmental degradation are all threatening the viability of the EU’s agri-food sector, and sets out how they will support farmers and suppliers, while also outlining the need to increase the number of young farmers across the continent, with just 12% of farmers under 40.
However, a week on from the document’s release, West Cork farmers have said that it now needs to be followed with action, mainly in the form of the CAP budget which is due to be discussed later this spring.
The West Cork chairperson of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), DJ Keohane said that the strategy appeared to signal a ‘step change’ in EU farm policy.
But the Innishannon farmer said that ‘obviously’ the success or otherwise of the vision would depend on the policy actions that follow.
He said that the positive sentiments the plan contained must be turned into real actions at farm level.
Ronald Shorten: ‘Too many grey areas.’ (Photo: Andy Gibson)
‘There’s an acknowledgment of what has been obvious to farmers – and certainly farmers in West Cork - for years: that the agriculture sector is suffering and that that sector is of huge strategic significance for the EU,’ he said.
‘We also detect encouraging signals on the failure of the “one-size-fits-all” policy; the realisation that imports will have to meet EU standards; that below-cost selling is a problem; that generational renewal is critical with positive comments on a farm retirement scheme. These are all issues that ICMSA, in common with others, have identified for years as requiring answers.
‘This “vision” shows the Commission finally conceding that they do need to be addressed, and we now need to see real actions that build on the positive sentiments it contains,’ said the veteran West Cork ICMSA figure.
He added that the next CAP budget will be where farmers see the ‘sincerity’ of the EU’s vision for the sector: ‘If you talk to any farmer around Cork or anywhere in Ireland, you hear the same request: we need to deal with issues in a collaborative manner as opposed to the top down rules approach adopted up to now and the cause of much frustration and confusion. The next CAP budget would signal the sincerity of the “vision” and we will need to see a significantly expanded CAP budget and the end of the “robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul” practices that had rendered CAP almost irrelevant.’
The EU document states that the delivery of their fundamental ‘priority areas’ rests largely on the ‘simplification of the regulatory framework that impacts farmers and the entire agri-food value chain’.
However, Keohane stated that there has been no sign of a simplification of farm related rules, pointing out that ‘just barely nine weeks into 2025 farmers in Ireland have already seen new rules in relation to veterinary medicines, new rules on nitrates, new rules on peatlands’.
It’s an issue that Ronald Shorten, pro of the West Cork IFA Executive, said is not only causing problems for experienced farmers, but also creating a barrier that stops younger people from farming altogether.
‘There’s nothing black and white,’ he said. ‘There’s too many grey areas. They need to pull up on that and say what’s right and what’s wrong and what young farmers need to do and what they’re not allowed to do – there’s not enough of that.’
