The increase in the volume of red tape and bureaucracy involved to comply with environmental agricultural schemes has been criticised by a new Clare farm leader.
Veteran IFA East Clare member, Stephen Walsh was unanimously elected unopposed as the new Clare IFA chairman following the organisation’s annual general meeting in the Woodstock Hotel, Ennis on Monday night.
In an interview with The Clare Champion, Mr Walsh warned the form filling that is required for farmers has got a hundred times worse than when former IFA President, John Dillon railed against the bureaucracy farmers had to endure.
“Someone is going to have to have a look and find out what is this all about. We have to get professionals now to fill out our forms. There are so much criteria and red tape if we make a mistake it is too serious,” he said.
“Farmers have to pay farm planners up front. We were promised money under the ACRES scheme last November and it is now the end of February. We are told we are going to get an interim payment but we had to pay out money to be involved in this scheme.”
Mr Walsh is part of the cooperation category, which has the most restrictions in terms of farming practices and yet he has received no payment.
“We were told we were priority access even though everyone got into the scheme, which was rightly so. Every farmer should be able to get into an environmental scheme. But they are trying to run these schemes on a shoestring, which will not work. They have to find new money for these schemes,” he said.
“Farmers want to deliver on an environmental ambition, but we have to be paid to do it. Under the old REPS Scheme, once you joined you got paid at the start. You weren’t waiting for your money. It was a brilliant focused scheme, which paid for huge work in the middle nineties.
“We have gone backwards since. Farmers were being paid between €10,000 and €15,000 in the nineties. The payment for environmental schemes needs to be doubled,” he said.
During his four-year term, Mr Walsh pledged to lobby for the introduction of a proper well paid environmental scheme, resolving Ash Dieback, and increasing the suckler cow subsidy from €200 to €300.
“We shouldn’t be waiting until a tree falls on someone for us to tackle the Ash Dieback issue. A lot of these trees are dead, we know they have to be taken down. It is completely unfair to throw this back on farmers.
“A new scheme needs to be put in place to tackle this issue. It will take years to tackle this issue but it needs to be done before someone gets injured. The farmer is responsible for bringing in this disease.
“We needs ecologists to identify what trees are diseased.”
Deeply concerned about the changes in the ICBF beef grading system, he said a farmer who had a five-star cow last September will retain this classification if he sells it to a neighbour who is in the SCEP Scheme but it falls to a two star for anyone who is not in this scheme, which is “crazy”.
“We need to find a simpler solution for farmers. The suckler cow generally lives on the heavier glay soils,” he said.
Born and raised in Feakle, he was one of four boys and two girls. Two of his brothers are also involved in agricultural-related activities one works in forestry and one is a pig farmer.
Having joined the IFA 40 years ago, he feels it is so important to have a voice for farmers.
“The IFA is a lobby group to make changes in farming. If you don’t have a strong voice, you will not make any progress,” he said.
Asked about the alleged disconnect between the Department of Agriculture and farmers, which was expressed in numerous contributions during the annual general meeting, he stressed it was vital to find workable solutions for the current and future generations. He believes more demonstrations are necessary to try and find solutions to between 40 and 50 issues raised by IFA members during the meeting.
Having opted out of dairying, the 63 year-old is in his second year as an organic farmer on land that he purchased.
“It is a huge learning curve experiencing this transition. I will be fully organic beef next year. At the moment I am building up from a low level. I need to be cautious because it is a big change,” he said.
“I can’t use any chemical fertiliser and can’t dose cattle unless I get official clearance. It is very restrictive but it is bringing you back to real nature because you are allowing the land to purchase grass at its own level,” he said.
“This has been a challenge for me because I produced very little grass in the last 12 months. It surprised me but we do need to learn more about soil health and how this works.
“There is good and bad land in every field. I have heavier gley soil in North East Clare, some of it is peaty that has poor drainage. It is a huge management issue to try and manage that land.
“I have tried to keep my stock out all year, which is a massive challenge after the winter we have experienced. On good land the land works for you, on bad land, you have to work for the land.
He was involved in dairy farming from a child up to age of 50 when a decision was taken to change their farming enterprise. When his parents decided to retire, they opted to participate in the Farm Early Retirement Scheme and opted to lease the farm.
When this scheme finished, the farm came back into his ownership and he opted to go into suckler farming and bought some additional land. He went back into dairying for a period until his parents got sick, his mother became ill in 2014. In 2015, he leased out the farm to look after his parents who died in 2017.
East Clare correspondent, Dan Danaher is a journalism graduate of Rathmines and UL. He has won numerous awards for special investigations on health, justice, environment, and reports on news, agriculture, disability, mental health and community.