French-style contracts for NI farmers?

19 October 2001



French-style contracts for NI farmers?

By Philip Clarke

FRENCH-style land management contracts could be the way to redirect subsidies in Northern Ireland, according to the Ulster Farmers Union.

Contracts could ensure farmers are rewarded properly for all the services they provide, said commodities director Wesley Aston.

“With all the talk of reducing direct aid payments, we need to find other mechanisms for seeing support gets into farmers pockets.”

The French land management contract pays farmers subsidies in return for specific socio-economic, environmental or animal welfare benefits.

Usually this is a lump sum covering about 30% of the cost of delivering these benefits and an annual payment rewarding working practices.

Mr Aston said one 200ha beef and arable French farm he visited received about 36,360 over five years for environmental improvements.

This was made up of 6610 for new machinery and 5950 a year for pollution control measures.

These involved establishing temporary grass leys, hedge planting and maintenance, manure composting, and growing protein crops on set-aside.

Mustard had been planted between harvest and sowing to absorb nitrates and the farmer had stopped using atrazine on certain areas.

The scheme is open to full- and part-time farmers co-ops and groups.

Applications are lodged with regional government bodies, which assess each project and its contribution towards the needs of the area.

The farmer undertakes to meet a minimum set of conditions over five years.

“One big advantage of these contracts is they are eligible for additional national funding,” said Mr Aston.

“The UK is hampered by its historically low use of European Union rural development funds, getting just 3% of the total budget.

“Given all the talk about sustainable farming, this is one way in which the government could actually deliver on its rhetoric.”