New Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon is being called on to address the issue of restrictions for farmers on wetlands and peatlands.
Francie Gorman, the president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) said that farmers on these types of soils need a solution to the restrictions caused by the EU’s good agricultural and environmental conditions (GAECs), part of the conditionality of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Gorman said that thousands of farmers are potentially impacted by GAEC 2, which deals with wetlands, peatlands, and the restriction of certain farming activity on these types of soils.
Gorman said that this was one of the issues raised with European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen when he attended the IFA annual general meeting (AGM) last week.
“Minister Heydon must now take up the issue with the [European] Commission which is threatening Ireland with fines if we don’t implement GAEC 2 in 2025,” the IFA president said.
He said that the IFA has been in regular discussions with the European Commission and the former Minister for Agriculture in relation to GAEC 2 since it first appeared in the draft EU CAP proposals for the current CAP.
He said that the IFA wrote to the European Commission and MEPs in early 2024 looking to have GAEC 2 amended or removed as part of the commission’s plan to “simplify” farms schemes and to reduce red tape for farmers.
Farm organisations were originally presented with a set of possible measures to implement GAEC 2 at the end of September 2023.
The IFA said it wrote to the department outlining concerns immediately after that September 2023 meeting, and followed up with a detailed submission in early October 2023 setting out issues with the proposals, and seeking a deferral of the implementation of GAEC 2.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine recently presented farm organisations with a new set of proposals for the implementation of EU requirements, and these are currently being considered by the IFA.
“There is no doubt but that provisions of GAEC 2 are problematic for Irish farmers given the amount of peat soil we have here,” Gorman said.
“The option of removing it or deferring it at EU level would be the best outcome, but we have little support from the commission, which wants to impose fines on Ireland if we don’t comply,” he added.
“Ultimately, preserving agricultural activity is paramount. Any GAEC 2 measure that is introduced cannot economically damage the farm operation. We need our new minister for agriculture [Heydon] to find a solution,” the IFA president added.