Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Budget 2024 is an opportunity for this Government to ensure that we deliver for farmers and for rural Ireland. In my own areas of responsibility, I have put a particular focus on addressing the three legs of the sustainability stool, namely, economic, environmental and social. I will continue to build the networks to improve farmer safety, health and well-being with a dedicated fund of €2.5 million in 2024. This fund will be used to extend the range of initiatives currently undertaken to improve farm safety and wellness among the farming community. This dedicated funding has allowed me to target key areas such as the quality of safety training in our agricultural colleges, to roll out targeted programmes to primary school children and to get physical investments onto farms through the national farm safety measures, where we are nearing 4,000 expressions of interest. That is 4,000 farms that will now have quad helmets or will have defective PTO covers replaced. I have also funded a range of awareness-raising initiatives around key risks such as calving season, quad bike use as well as investing in health supports for farmers.

Social sustainability encompasses a wide range of areas including farm succession, farm safety, farmer health and well-being, and over the next year, I intend to target a number of these areas further initiatives through my farm safety budget.

The budget for farm safety also complements the intense work I have been doing to put farm safety at the heart of everything we do. In the previous CAP, there was a requirement to complete half-day farm safety training under the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS. Now, we have a dedicated farm safety heading as part of the scheme with a higher 60% grant rate to provide every farmer with the opportunity to invest in their farm’s safety and efficiency. It is therefore welcome that budget 2024 has earmarked a significant provision for TAMS.

On the tax side, we are extending several reliefs designed to help with farm succession and extending the accelerated capital allowance for farm safety equipment and investment. This is something I fought to have introduced a number of years ago. These support farmers who have suffered life-changing injuries and want to continue farming into the future. Very importantly, they also support investments in preventative measures that make farms safer.

We are also providing additional places on the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES. Every farmer in the scheme will be provided with farm safety training as part of the programme, ensuring we reach an even broader cohort of farmers. These courses are getting under way around the country as we speak.

Livestock is one of the major risks on farms, as we know. In addition to providing more than €100 million in financial supports for beef and sheep farmers, our new beef scheme, the suckler carbon efficiency programme, SCEP, also makes provision for providing safety training to farmers who often handle high-risk animals. Of course, farm succession is closely linked to farm safety and the Government has again reaffirmed its commitment to the present and future generations by extending tax reliefs and increasing individual thresholds.

The area of research and development is also a key focus for me. I am delighted to have secured an additional €2 million in funding for this area, bringing my Department's research budget to €22.45 million. This will be used to drive greater innovation in our agriculture, food, forestry and bio-economy sectors as we position Irish agriculture as a leader in sustainable food production. Farmers cannot deliver on environmental sustainability unless they are economically sustainable. I firmly believe the answer to the challenges faced by agriculture around climate and environmental issues lies in science and innovation. Agriculture reduced its emissions last year and we are on a downward trajectory. Also, research work funded by the Department has led to significant breakthroughs in areas such as low-nitrogen grasses and selecting for low-emitting livestock. We are also seeing some positive results in the work we have funded on methane additives, and we will share those shortly.

All these breakthroughs strengthen farmers’ toolboxes to allow them to continue producing top-quality food while doing so with a reduced emission profile. This will be a key driver of increasing the value of our food and drink exports in the years ahead. Budget 2024 allows us to maintain this momentum, ensuring we have the resources for strong funding calls to build on existing partnerships with countries such as New Zealand, and not only address challenges we face here but also to be leaders in global efforts to develop sustainable livestock systems.

We must also showcase to farmers and the wider public what these efforts are translating to in the real world. We need widespread adoption of the latest technology and management practices. That is why we are organising a major agri-climate conference that will take place on 15 November in the Aviva Stadium. Teagasc, too, plays a crucial role in driving innovation on farms and to ensure the adoption and uptake of new practices we are making an allocation of just under €168 million to Teagasc as part of budget 2024, which is an increase of 3% on last year.

Finally, reducing the emissions profile of our food production and ensuring we are market leaders in sustainable food production are central to everything we want to achieve under Food Vision 2030. Currently, we are in the lead but if we stand still, others will catch up. Bord Bia will receive an allocation of just under €57 million, which is also a 3% increase. It plays an important role in marketing Irish food abroad and ensuring we are alive to the trends in the markets we are currently in, as well as identifying those newer markets that have high potential. In the year ahead, we will continue to focus on improving our market access across a range of priority markets, in addition to building on the very valuable existing markets we have.

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