Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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Question 138: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food his plans to encourage young farmers to stay in agribusiness in order to achieve the targets set out in Harvest 2020. [10802/11]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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A number of tax incentives are in place to encourage the transfer of land to young trained farmers. These include:

100% stamp duty relief on transfers of agricultural land and buildings to young trained farmers;

100% stamp duty relief on land purchased by young trained farmers;

Retirement relief on Capital Gains Tax for disposals to family members;

Retirement relief on Capital Gains Tax for farm disposals up to the value of €750,000 and marginal relief on disposals above this threshold;

Retirement relief on Capital Gains Tax for lands which had been transferred in the Early Retirement Scheme; and

100% stock relief for young trained farmers.

New entrants to farming have been catered for each year since 2005 under the Single Payment Scheme National Reserve. For effective operation of this reserve scheme, certain farming-related educational qualifications and off-farm income limits apply.

In regard to assisting young farmers to remain in the sector, in the case of my Department's on-farm investment schemes, grant aid is available to young farmers for the purposes of supporting investments in relation to poultry and sow welfare, dairy equipment, sheep fencing/handling equipment, and rainwater harvesting equipment. In the case of three of these schemes (Dairy Equipment Scheme, Sheep Fencing/Handling Scheme, and Rainwater Harvesting Scheme), the criteria for selecting applications for approval include the provision of additional marks for young farmers or young trained farmers.

In the dairy sector, since the inception of the Milk Quota Trading Scheme in 2007, almost 73 million litres of milk quota has made its way into the hands of young farmers, and they will have an opportunity to further augment that figure under future Trading Schemes, the next of which will be announced in early September.

The introduction of milk quota increases under the November 2008 Health Check agreement provided an opportunity to further encourage new entrants to dairying. The New Entrants Scheme resulted in the allocation of a total of 14.4 million litres of quota to 72 new entrants in 2009, and a further 14 million litres was allocated to 73 new or recent entrants in 2010. The assessment of applications for the allocation of a further 14 million litres for 2011 is currently under way and I expect to be in a position to announce the results of this scheme by the end of the month. The scope for further schemes will be reviewed with the farming organisations in due course.

The Presidency Conclusion on the "CAP towards 2020" which was agreed by most member states and which I supported at the Council of EU Agriculture Ministers on March 17th outlined the need to better address the specific needs of young farmers in the reformed CAP.