Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

189. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the degree to which his Department remains committed to the concept of support for the family farm enterprise, having particular regard to particular challenges or threats; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47291/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The 2013 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy was a useful and progressive reform making the CAP fit for purpose to 2020.  It provided Irish farmers and the agri-food sector with policy certainty for the years to come and with strategic financial support to increase sustainability and enhance competitiveness.  I will continue to work with my EU colleagues to ensure that we engage in policies that promote the interests of the EU agricultural sector.

Food Wise 2025, the ten year strategy for the agri-food sector published in July 2015 identifies the opportunities and challenges facing the entire sector and provides an enabling strategy that will allow it to grow and prosper. Food Wise includes more than 400 specific recommendations, spread across the cross-cutting themes of sustainability, innovation, human capital, market development and competitiveness, as well as specific sectorial recommendations. The implementation process is driven by a High Level Implementation Committee, which I chair.

My Department continually monitors the cost of farm production inputs via the most recent data available from national and international sources. These include the Central Statistics Office's Agricultural Price Indices, Teagasc publications, EU level data from Eurostat and international equivalents from bodies such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation and OECD.

Direct payments from my Department serve to support family farm income and act as a fundamental hedge against price volatility. Direct payments amounted to over €1.7 billion last year. Figures from Teagasc’s National Farm Survey 2016 show that average payments per farm represented by the survey amounted to almost €18,000, accounting for 75% of family farm income.