Update: Protecting the Family Farm Enterprise, 2nd July 2015

Parliamentary Question No. 131  
 
 
 
 
To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the steps he has taken or proposes to take in conjunction with his EU colleagues to protect the viability of the family farm enterprise here; and if he will make a statement on the matter.  

– Bernard J. Durkan.  
 

 
For WRITTEN answer on Wednesday, 1st July, 2015.  
 
Ref No: 26656/15 Proof: 135
 
 

REPLY  
 

The Minister for Agriculture, Food      and the Marine  : (Simon Coveney)  

The 2013 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy was a useful and progressive reform making the CAP fit for purpose to 2020. It provided Irish farmers and the agri-food sector with policy certainty for the years to come and with strategic financial support to increase sustainability and enhance competitiveness. I will continue to work with my EU colleagues to ensure that we engage in policies that promote the interests of the EU agricultural sector.  
 
Teagasc’s National Farm Survey 2013, which represents just over 79,000 farms, estimated that:  

·    35% of farms were economically viable.   An economically viable farm is defined as one that has the capacity to pay family labour at the average agricultural wage, and also to provide a 5% return on non-land assets.  
·    32% of farms were sustainable. A sustainable farm is not economically viable but it is sustainable due to the presence of off-farm income.  
·    The remaining 33% of farms were classified as ‘vulnerable’.  

 
Around 60,000 farms are excluded from the National Farm Survey because their standard output is less than €8,000.   Most of these farms are small, but many may be sustainable due to off-farm sources of income.  
 
It is clear that there remain profitability issues at farm level that need to be addressed. This is one of the reasons why I appointed a 2025 Agri-Food Strategy Committee late last year to devise a strategy for the continued development of the sector to 2025. The Committee submitted its report to me at the end of last month with key recommendations and actions it considers necessary to allow us set ever more challenging goals for the longer term. I am currently examining the report.