Shane McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

The proposals to amend the CAP were published last October and comprise three broad strands relating to pillar 1, direct payment to farmers and pillar 2, rural development and market supports. In the case of rural development the Commission has indicated its intention to focus on certain key areas and this includes support for innovation and young farmers. I am very pleased that these provisions have been included as they provide broad scope for support to these areas. Business start-up aid is proposed for young farmers on the basis of a business plan and rates of support are generous. Higher rates of support are also proposed for young farmers under the investment measure and on-farm investment will be one of my priority areas under the reformed CAP. It is important that we support our young farmers and encourage structural change so we will be looking at the possibilities presented to support young farmers in both the first and second pillars of the CAP.

Aside from the specific CAP reform proposals within the proposed EU budget under the next multi-annual financial framework, €4.5 billion will be made available to support research and innovation on food security, the bio-economy and sustainable agriculture. While it is not fully clear how these funds will be distributed, it is clear there will be a strengthening of the links between research and the activities funded under the CAP. In this regard, Horizon 2020, the successor to the seventh EU framework programme on research and development which is currently being finalised, will address a number of societal challenges, the most relevant being, food security, sustainable agriculture, marine and maritime research and the bio-economy.

The Department acts as the national delegate and the national contact point for the current agriculture-related research activities funded under FP7 and will continue to do so until FP7 ends in January 2014. It is likely that the current co-ordinated national support network of which the Department is a party, will be continued for Horizon 2020 to support our research community in leveraging funds from the Horizon 2020 programme. To date, Irish researchers have been very successful in leveraging funding from the FP7 programme under the food, agriculture, fisheries and biotechnology thematic area which is most relevant to the agri-food sector. To date, Ireland has drawn down almost 2% of the available budget. In the last call under FP7, Ireland leveraged €6 million of EU funding to support Irish researchers to develop capacity to support the agri-food sector.

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