A better quality of life for farmers must be created to prevent land abandonment

Preventing the numbers of full-time farmers decreasing, both in Ireland and across Europe, has been an ambition of the last two CAP reforms, and is a constant rallying cry at election time.

There are large tracts of land in the EU where the threat of land abandonment is of serious concern, as farmers migrate to urban areas in search of work and a better quality of life.

This is not a new phenomenon, but there is a tipping point when there are just too few people left farming. There is a limit to how much work one farmer can take on, especially as they age.

With a growing population and changing work practices, many rural communities in Ireland are being boosted by growing numbers of people who are not employed in agricultural businesses.

Working from home has improved the quality of life of private sector workers and civil servants, many of whom are financially better off because they can now live outside the expensive urban areas, and by working from home, they can save on the costly commute to work.

Not having to sit in traffic on the commute to work is a perk of being a farmer, but with the Irish economy charging ahead, many full-time farmers aren’t seeing many other benefits.

Pay increases

Last week the Government announced that public sector employees will see an average increase of 10.25pc to their pay over the next two and a half years.

For those on lower pay scales, they will see their 2027 salaries rise by up to 17.3pc. The cost of the pay deal is estimated to be €3.6 billion spread over four budgets.

The new pay agreement, according to the Department of Finance, is in line with what the Government expect the pay rises in the private sector to be over the same timeframe.

In January, Revenue announced that the number of people earning over €100,000 had gone up 50pc in the last year. This indicates, that despite criticism by opposition parties, the national economy is performing well.

However, for farmers, 2027 will be a pivotal year, as that is when the current CAP deal expires. The EU CAP budget has not been index-linked since 1999, yet the EU Commission are still wondering why the numbers of full-time farmers across the EU are continuing to decline.

Farmers are sick of hearing complaints of food price inflation and tightening budgets (both household and fiscal), whilst more and more demands and regulations are placed on the dwindling number of people working as full-time farmers.

As inflation continues to erode farm income, an increasing number of farms will fail to encourage a successor to take over the business.

With almost full employment in the state, and significantly shorter working weeks, holidays, pensions and regular pay rises, the options available to potential young farmers are greater now than they have ever been.

If policy makers want a thriving European farming population, they are going to have to give serious consideration to how they fund the sector, and ease the pressure that is placed on farmers.

The subject of food security for Europe is back in vogue, but unless farming can get close to matching the income and quality of life available in other sectors of society, the brain drain out of agriculture will only accelerate.

A new and better educated generation of farm kids, with fewer ties to the land, will be unlikely to devote the most productive years of their lives to farming.

Without a thriving Irish and European agricultural sector, European consumers will be buying food produced outside Europe with little or no EU regulatory controls on how it is produced.

‘Unless farming gets close to the income available in other sectors of society, the agriculture brain drain will only accelerate’