IRELAND MUST change its rural development policy away from farmers and extend it to the wider rural community, Irish Rural Link (IRL) has said.
IRL, an umbrella group for 300 groups which support sustainable rural communities, said support for farmers was a weak basis for driving real rural development.
“Rural development can only be properly served if it is separated from supports for agriculture,” it said in a submission to the Department of Agriculture on the upcoming reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (Cap).
It said a background note from the department’s consultative committee on Cap post-2013 outlined current policy. This said the “core purpose of rural development is to support farmers in developing their productive capacity while ensuring the environment and ensuring the well-being of the wider rural community”.
“We strongly disagree, and Irish Rural Link considers this statement unacceptable and an inaccurate reflection of views. It must be changed,” said the submission.
“Irish Rural Link believes future rural development policy must take on board the diverse nature of rural areas, both economically and socially, and the fact that support for agriculture alone is not in the best long-term interest of rural communities.
“Future rural development policy must offer an opportunity to build a truly resilient rural economy. The concentration of funding going into farming, thereby not going into the wider rural community, is a significant issue.”
It said of the €7 billion allocated to Ireland, only €425 million was for rural development outside farms – just over 6 per cent.
Support from the EU to rural areas was based on the view that it would sustain the quality of life of rural communities through measures that enhance economic performance. Ireland’s interpretation of this was, given that the main element of our rural economy remains agriculture, 95 per cent of the money must go to that sector.
“Yet, despite all that support, employment in agriculture decreased steadily, in the BMW region by 17 per cent. Recently the number of full-time undergraduate students in Ireland exceeded the total number engaged in farming and related activities.
“Income dependence on subsidies by farmers is on average 95 per cent and almost every facet of farming is now wholly interwoven into Cap.”
It said the OECD said successful rural economies required good transport and communications, and a shift from subsidising declining industries to making strategic investments in rural regions.