Farm leaders welcome 70% advance pay-out

FARM Leaders have warmly welcomed news of a 70% pay-out in the October Basic Payment money as compared to the normal 50% rate – the moves comes after a strong lobbying campaign based on poor incomes this year for a number of sectors.

IFA President Eddie Downey said the 70% proposed advance on the Basic Payment to be paid out on October 16, would be a most welcome financial injection for many cash strapped farmers.

He said that the increased level of advance payment was being made because of the income crisis situation affecting in particular the dairy, grain and pig sectors.

“The Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has to ensure the 70% advance includes the Basic greening payments, and that all other EU payments are made on time. The remaining 30% will be due on December 1,” said Eddie Downey.

The advance, he said, was part of a package of measures that the EU Commission and Farm Council brought forward to support farmers, including market measures such as increased intervention prices, APS (aid for private storage) for cheese and export refunds for pigmeat.

According to the IFA President, the EU Commission will have a fund of over €800m worth of surperlevy fines paid by European over-quota farmers.

He said that this must be used to support dairy farmers and not subsumed into the EU overall budget. It is not an option to use the Crisis Reserve as this would impact all farmers’ payments. It should be made available to underpin supports and promotional measures.

“It is critically important that Ministers step up at Monday’s meeting with a strong declaration that Europe will ban below-cost selling of food and address the excessive input costs imposed on farmers. It is vital that Farm Ministers take action to ensure the EU Single Market is working properly,” said Eddie Downey.

Galway IFA Chairman, Pat Murphy, said that the 70% advance payment was most welcome news for farmers under severe cashflow problems this year.

“The dairy sector has been hit particularly hard with the superlevy fines, tax bills from last year and falling prices. This 70% payment will be a help to tide us over until the end of the year,” said Pat Murphy.

He said that many farmers were looking at a situation where bills were mounting up for input products such as feed and fertiliser at a time when their milk cheques had fallen drastically.