Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if progress has been made on broadening farm partnerships beyond solely dairy partnerships; the options open to those who operate enterprises other than dairy who wish to form a recognised farm partnership; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48379/12]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Farmers, in common with business operators in other sectors, are at liberty to enter into partnership agreements establishing collaborative arrangements for farming or other activities. Such arrangements are governed by the Partnership Act of 1890. In addition, under the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, individual partnerships are given tax reference numbers and a precedent partner is identified for the purposes of assigning responsibility for the preparation and delivery to the Revenue Commissioners of a return of partnership income and gains.

A variety of business models, including collaborative arrangements such as partnership and share farming are available to farmers in all sectors, though not in a manner which requires formal registration of the farm partnership.

However, in the dairy sector, specific formalized arrangements for the registration of dairy production partnerships were established under the Milk Quota Regulations, in the context of providing access to milk quota for partnerships under the Milk Quota Trading Scheme. These regulations will be repealed upon the demise of milk quotas in 2015.

I am supportive of partnership and other collaborative arrangements between farmers which can help to address a variety of issues such as scale, land and capital equipment availability, sharing of skills and rural isolation. Equally, I recognize that there may be cultural and other barriers to formalised collaboration arrangements at farm level in Ireland.

With this in mind, and as a temporary stimulus to assist in the development of the partnership model, I announced in the context of last year’s budget, a stock relief measure intended, subject to EU State Aid approval being obtained, to be available to registered farm partnerships. At present, and for the historical reasons already explained, the only formalised registration vehicle for farm partnerships is that available under the Milk Quota Regulations.

Against the general background described above, I am at present considering the question of establishing a formalised mechanism for recognizing farm partnerships, and in that context seeking to identify a basis in primary legislation for such registration. While deliberations on this matter have not yet concluded, I expect to be in a position to make a decision on the matter in the near future.