John Heney: Direct payment penalties make a mockery of farmers’ efforts to protect the environment

John Heney’s cattle pictured grazing last week with Kilfeacle graveyard and a snow-covered Galteemore in the background. The unseasonal cold spells recently have disrupted grass growth for a second round of grazing, says John.

John Heney

April 15 2021 07:11 AM

There is an increasing awareness among most people of the importance of our natural environment, but that has not always been the situation.

While it’s quite a while since I was in primary school, I can still remember my teacher bemoaning the amount of land farmers were wasting by not removing all the ditches and hedgerows on their farms and replacing them with wire fences.

This teacher was a man of his time as a subsequent study in Cavan showed that in the 90 years up to 1998, over 30pc of hedgerows were removed from the Cavan landscape.

But it wasn’t just in Cavan that this occurred. Encouraged by government policy and assisted by EU grants for land improvements, massive amounts of hedgerows were removed from the Irish landscape.

Thankfully, there has been a change of heart in more recent times. Irish policymakers, along with their EU counterparts, eventually recognised the critical role the ‘natural world’ plays in sustaining food production, and in 2009 hedgerows were designated as Landscape Features and given protected status.

However, the story doesn’t end there. In more recent times — in what appears to be another policy debacle — many farmers who apply for a renewal of their annual direct farm payments find themselves being penalised when certain areas of their farm are suddenly deemed to be ineligible for these supports.

The outcome is that not alone are large portions of their EU payments forfeited, additional penalties were also imposed on them.

The irony is that because of the apparently ill-informed approach of our policy makers, many of the areas deemed ineligible (for direct payments) are actually of exceptional environmental value and importance.

For example, areas fenced off along hedgerows to protect them from stock damage — and which served as valuable ‘wildlife corridors’ — are deemed ineligible, with many farmers being penalised.

Roadways
Vital farm infrastructure such as roadways which were put in place to protect land from compaction, poaching and other environmental damage caused by the daily movement of cattle, cows and farm machinery, are also declared ineligible.

It makes me wonder whether the experts in both Brussels and Government Buildings have any understanding of why farm developments such as these are undertaken?

There are many other anomalies.

For example, important wildlife sanctuaries such as ponds, many with some scrub attached and areas of scrub around national monuments, are also deemed ‘ineligible’ for direct payments.

Given this and other illogical policy decisions, I find it difficult to look forward with any degree of confidence to the outcome of the current CAP reform talks in Brussels and our own ‘Agriculture 2030 Strategy’.

Another worrying development is the current efforts by some politicians to promote ‘convergence as if it were a miracle remedy for the many difficulties being experienced in the beef sector.

Engaging in political populism by attempting to convert what were — previous to the ‘McSharry Reforms — beef price support payments into some form of social welfare system may result in extra votes, but will inevitably lead to the demise of the already dwindling number of viable full-time beef farms left in the country .

If Brussels does insist on including more cutbacks on full-time beef farmers in their current reforms, they must surely realise that it’s not just farmers who will feel the pain — it’s their families who suffer the most.

I cannot envisage such a direct attack on families being allowed to occur in any other sector of Irish society.

Meanwhile, back on my farm, the work goes on as the seasons come and go as always.

While I did get some cattle out on grass on March 1, things haven’t run that smoothly since.

My biggest problem at the moment is that, while I found it quite easy to get cattle out early in March on fields which have been stopped since last autumn, ensuring sufficient regrowth for a second round of grazing is quite challenging given this spring’s many cold spells. But such is life on a farm.

On a more positive note, the slurry which I got out on my silage ground in mid-February is now showing good results.

I also managed to get the remainder of the fertiliser out on this ground in late March, so all things being equal I’m looking forward to having my first cut silage ready for cutting in mid-May — weather permitting of course!

John Heney farms in Kilfeacle, Co Tipperary