Irish Natura & Hill Farmers Association Policy Spokesperson Colm O Donnell stated that the Beef Data & Genomics Programme is unworkable for most small suckler cow farmers. Mr O’Donnell was addressing over 150 farmers at the West Cavan launch of the INHFA, held in Glangelvin on Wednesday night.
He described the scheme as “a load of bull that will deliver nothing for the 39,500 suckler farmers with 10 or less cows.” INHFA believe a weanling welfare scheme would be better suited in this instance. A similar scheme for mountain lamb is necessary and should be adopted for the low margin hill sheep sector. INHFA are presently developing proposals on welfare schemes for weanlings and hill lamb, which they hope to discuss with EU Commission officials and MEPs in Brussels. Forefront on the agenda for that meeting will be a discussion on the barriers to entry in GLAS which resulted in only 6% commonage uptake in Tranche 1, also the seeming inability of vulnerable sectors to access other RDP schemes. “In previous meetings with EU officials they were very clear with us that if schemes were inaccessible to farmers especially those in vulnerable sectors and areas they needed to know about it” Mr O’Donnell concluded.
ENDS
If you need any further clarification on points in press release please contact either of the following people
Henry O’Donnell (Donegal) 062670742
Brendan Joyce (Galway) 0872226737
Colm O’Donnell (Sligo) 0863892279
John Moran (Mayo) 0868306586
