14th January, 2014

The Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association has broadly welcomed the CAP decisions announced this evening (14th Jan). ICSA president Gabriel Gilmartin said, “The Minister has called most of the important decisions on Pillar 1 correctly, but we would have preferred 50 per cent rather than 46 per cent co-funding for Pillar 2.”

“We are disappointed that the payment per animal for the Beef Genomics Scheme is still too low at €80, but we are happy with the targeted approach of this scheme. We are also disappointed that more support isn’t being made available for sheep farming.”

He also added that a higher payment for the GLAS scheme with a greater effort at targeting funds towards lower income cattle and sheep farmers would have been a better option.

Finally, the ICSA president welcomed the maximum payment of €700 per hectare, in the interests of making more money available for farmers with lower payments.