The first 'town hall' meeting by Department of Agriculture officials outlining the Government's draft CAP strategic plan has been branded “a farce” by the IFA.
It comes as new Department modelling has confirmed that the majority of farmers would benefit from a further redistribution of farm payments, but the move will come at a heavy price to other farmers, particularly in the dairy and tillage sectors.
For months, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has said he would be holding off on making a host of key decisions on the next CAP in order to consult with farmers.
However, after the first town hall meeting last night, the IFA said the process didn't allow farmers “to have their voices heard” as the minister promised.
IFA president Tim Cullinan said only written questions were allowed, and these were hidden in a private chat function so that only the questioner could see the question and the answer.
"Somebody decided to shut down any opportunity to debate issues about a CAP reform which will have significant ramifications for the incomes of farmers.
"It denies farmers on the ground any input to the debate on funding, which is the elephant in the room on these proposals," he said.
The IFA president further revealed that the consultation document itself was only sent to stakeholders an hour before their last meeting of the CAP consultative group and claimed it was presented as a “fait accompli” on “the Friday of the August bank holiday weekend”.
However, Mr Cullinan did say a presentation on proposed schemes was made to the group in May, but said the Department amended them since that meeting, including a controversial proposed penalty for expanding suckler numbers.
Yesterday, the Farming Independent highlighted that the European Commission is putting "never seen before" pressure on Ireland to increase climate action in agriculture in its CAP reform plans.
"The CAP deal needs to be agreed by the Department, by farmers but, also crucially, by the Commission. They are demanding that the CAP aligns closer with the EU Green Deal and without their approval, we don't have a deal. We simply must show greater levels of climate ambition in this CAP while protecting farmers' incomes too," one well-placed source said.
However, in a statement last night, the IFA president said the Minister and the Department “cannot ram through these proposals based on a sham consultation process”.
"Whatever definition of 'town hall' that you use, the Department didn't meet it. It's very frustrating and farmers would have to question the value of participating in meetings organised for tomorrow and Thursday," he said.
It comes as new Department research on the minister's reform plan highlighted the potential for significant shifts in payments between farmers from 2023.
The Department examined in detail two CAP scenarios, one implementing 85pc convergence and lower front-loading; and another looking at the impact of 100pc convergence and maximum front-loading.
Under the 'minimum' scenario, the majority of farmers (23,000) see an increase in payment in the range of €100-€500. However, approximately 16,000 farmers see a payment reduction of €1,000-€5,000.
Under the 'maximum' scenario, the majority of farmers (30,000) will see an increase in payment of €1,000-€5,000 and conversely, some 17,000 farmers see a reduction of €1,000-€5,000.
The Department also highlighted that there are some outliers in both models which will see more significant reductions in excess of €5,000.
