The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, has said he wants the Central Statistics Office, Teagasc and the economic unit of his Department to co-operate to define family farm income more clearly.
He said that the recent CSO figures showing a farm income drop of more than 13 per cent this year had not included off-farm income earned by farmers or their partners.
He said a high proportion of farmers, or their partners, were now working outside the farm and he wanted figures which reflected this. This, he said, would help policy-makers focus on the areas where help was needed most.
Mr Walsh said he accepted farmers had two bad years in 1998 and 1999, but he believed the Teagasc prediction which indicated a 4 per cent rise in farm income next year.
Launching his Department's annual review, and a guide to the Agenda 2000 changes in livestock and arable direct payments, the Minister said the two most difficult areas, pigs and sheep production, were showing an upturn.
He said the most recent predictions were that pig prices should increase from around the middle of next year. There had already been a substantial increase in lamb prices, which were now running at 17 per cent above prevailing levels at this time last year.
There had been an improvement in milk prices in the last quarter of the year and the outlook for beef farming was relatively positive. Steer prices were 9 per cent higher than at the same time last year and he expected these prices to continue into the new year.
Direct income payments in the coming year should be about £1 billion, he said. The main increases over 1999 would be in Rural Environment Protection Scheme payments and premiums for livestock and cereals negotiated in the Agenda 2000 reform of the CAP.
He said direct income payments now accounted for 56 per cent of farmer income and were vitally important. This year, £692 million had been paid to farmers under the various EU headage and premium schemes.
In addition, he said, almost £150 million had been paid by the Department under the REPS and £70 million under the EU Early Retirement Scheme.
"Taking all these factors into account . . . the outlook for farm income in 2000 is relatively optimistic," he said.
Commenting on the Minister's statement, Mr Tom Parlon, president of the Irish Farmers Association, said no amount of crystal-ball gazing could distract from the fact that farm incomes had declined by 18 per cent over the last two years while the rest of the economy was booming.
Saying Mr Walsh could not escape his responsibilities to the farm sector, Mr Parlon said he would like to be optimistic about the prospects for farming in the coming year, but there were thousands of farm families who were going through an income crisis.