Another Budget Another Disappointment

Press Release: Tuesday 4th October 2022

Another Budget another disappointment for the forgotten farmers Budget 2023 has failed to correct the failings of previous Governments in addressing the issue of the 'forgotten farmers'.

The ‘forgotten farmers’ are a combination of farmers who lost out following the removal of young farmer supports such as Installation Aid due to cuts in public expenditure by the Government following the last recession.

MACRA national president John Keane said, ‘it is now more than fourteen years since some of these farmers started out in their farming careers, and it is simply not good enough that the mistakes around the removal of supports have not been rectified’. MACRA has continually lobbied on behalf of these forgotten farmers to seek the support which they fairly deserve.

Mr. Keane said ‘in the Programme for Government it states in black and white that the government will seek to resolve, under the next CAP, the issue of support for the category of farmers known as Forgotten Farmers. When the support was not detailed under the newly submitted CAP Strategic Plan the Department of Agriculture citied reasons around qualifying criteria and meeting objectives as barriers, but assured MACRA that this cohort of farmers were not forgotten'.

‘We lobbied extensively on this issue in the lead up to Budget 2023 as it now seems the support is going to need to come from the National Exchequer,’ said John Keane.

‘These forgotten farmers can wait no longer with rising input and energy costs and many investments having been put on hold with the commitments by the Minister, the time to deliver meaningful supports for these farmers is now,’ concluded Keane.