Cap reform convergence

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

There's a couple of them in every parish.

I know of one who lets say was on good terms with a department man. He often had more sheep on paper than grass.

I shore more sheep that were passing through a farm than was right, how did they know when the inspection was coming ......oh right

MIKEKC

Deleted User wrote: »

You're familiar with 6,700 GLAS cases :pac:

Of course not. If you had everything in order, money spent on complying why would you not take e5000 for doing nothing ( scheme could be extended for another few years if new cap is held up)

MIKEKC wrote: »

Of course not. If you had everything in order, money spent on complying why would you not take e5000 for doing nothing ( scheme could be extended for another few years if new cap is held up)

Because life can change a lot in 5 years but a GLAS plan can't be changed, plus the number of simply awful planners. You've a fierce unhealthy fixation on this, we've been through it all before where you've said you're only saying this stuff on what's immediately local to yourself so I'm knocking it on the head here for me.

wrangler wrote: »

There was scams pulled off by farmers over the years and I don't know how people got away with it. A farmer here still brags about a hill he rented a hundred miles away and he never stood on it, yet used it to claim beef subsidies on........ how come he was never inspected

Were those subs not paid on the animal? 10 month and 22 month? Were there other ones tied to land farmed?

MIKEKC wrote: »

Of course not. If you had everything in order, money spent on complying why would you not take e5000 for doing nothing ( scheme could be extended for another few years if new cap is held up)

It's a fact of life, or at least it was,..... that maximising subsidies is vital to the successful running of a farm. That breathing space that extra money brings is vital to mental health, for drystock farmers anyway

MIKEKC

Deleted User wrote: »

Because life can change a lot in 5 years but a GLAS plan can't be changed, plus the number of simply awful planners. You've a fierce unhealthy fixation on this, we've been through it all before where you've said you're only saying this stuff on what's immediately local to yourself so I'm knocking it on the head here for me.

I understand what you are saying about my unhealthy fixation, but if you saw the list of names that I saw containing non compilers you would maybe understand my annoyance. I still believe my opinion on the 6,700 is correct

Donald Trump wrote: »

Were those subs not paid on the animal? 10 month and 22 month? Were there other ones tied to land farmed?

There was maximum number of subs you could draw per Hectare.
It was a job for christmas week here to sit down and make sure to get the maximum number for our hectares,

MIKEKC wrote: »

Not true I'm afraid, little or no inspections. One of the conditions of GLAS was to stock the commonage. Almost 100% non compliance with this rule (from the farmers that hadn't already stock on commonage). Everyone continued to get paid. 6,700 didn't opt for the extension, I wonder why?. A few would have leases finished. Vast majority felt 5years payments got ,take the money and run.

Very strong claims there to be fair, I dont think you could prove any of it. The commonages I am on were all inspected and were deemed to be suitably grazed. Some people grazed them more than others, but it is to be grazed between the group of people to a suitable level at the end of the day, which is what happened. To be honest I have seen far more blatent cases of abusing glas for things like wild bird cover and lipp..

wrangler wrote: »

It's a fact of life, or at least it was,..... that maximising subsidies is vital to the successful running of a farm. That breathing space that extra money brings is vital to mental health, for drystock farmers anyway

Which is why convergence is so important...

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Which is why convergence is so important...

There must have been a lot of farmers not needing money when i needed it, it was money for jam, why didn't everyone maximise it then.
Makes no difference to me now, but I was sick when i read the IFJ this week, doom and gloom etc, it was reminding me that in the nineties it was always reprting increases and extra subsidies.

wrangler wrote: »

There was maximum number of subs you could draw per Hectare.
It was a job for christmas week here to sit down and make sure to get the maximum number for our hectares,

They never had that problem here ...... no danger of there not being enough hectares to claim .... my grandfather at the time used to sell all the cattle with the subs not claimed. That is why the BPS here was so low even though there are probably 3 times the cattle in the place now.

Base price

MIKEKC wrote: »

Very few inspections last few years. Thought there was more during the beef subsidy years

Yep there was. I got inspected every six to nine months. I reckoned it was because I was located in NCD (closer to Kildare St.) for the suckler cow sub which was a pia cause I'd have to run the cows through the crush for the inspector. Having said that the odd in calf/maiden heifer or two made the cut. At that time the inspectors didn't know if they were cows cause the calf registration system wasn't computerised. Those were also the days where some farms had multiple twin births

However, times have moved on and AIM put a stop to that. After reading your post I looked in the filing cabinet and found a original Suckler Cow Subsidy form from 1999.

Base price wrote: »

Yep there was. I got inspected every six to nine months. I reckoned it was because I was located in NCD (closer to Kildare St.) for the suckler cow sub which was a pia cause I'd have to run the cows through the crush for the inspector. Having said that the odd in calf/maiden heifer or two made the cut. At that time the inspectors didn't know if they were cows cause the calf registration system wasn't computerised. Those were also the days where some farms had multiple twin births
However, times have moved on and AIM put a stop to that. After reading your post I looked in the filing cabinet and found a original Suckler Cow Subsidy form from 1999.

4 cows calved one day here last year and all had twins. Then another the next day had twins although one of those died due to not being taken quick enough. Never saw anything like that before.

Couldn't register more than the first two sets without a form having to be sent out and signed!

Base price

Donald Trump wrote: »

4 cows calved one day here last year and all had twins. Then another the next day had twins although one of those died due to not being taken quick enough. Never saw anything like that before.

Couldn't register more than the first two sets without a form having to be sent out and signed!

In those years there was a good trade for fresian bull calves bought in from dairy farmers (there was no need for calves to be tagged/registered on the farm of birth) and registered as a twin to another calf that was born on the farm. Eventually the Dept copped onto what was going on and clamped down - maybe that is why they now query several twin births in the same herd/year??

Base price wrote: »

In those years there was a good trade for fresian bull calves bought in from dairy farmers (there was no need for calves to be tagged/registered on the farm of birth) and registered as a twin to another calf that was born on the farm. Eventually the Dept copped onto what was going on and clamped down - maybe that is why they now query several twin births in the same herd/year??

Loads of potential reasons probably. Off the top of my head, maybe they are trying to protect against lads "laundering" calves from unregistered animals. Or maybe fellas trying to reduce the number of movements. Another possibility might be to keep the ages down - calf born in January and register him in April as the twin of another one instead. Better chance to get finished under 30 months.

As far as I know, above a certain threshold you have to sign the form to confirm that they are twins and that the department can do a genetic test to confirm if they are suspicious.

Base price

I looked through the same file in the filing cabinet and came across a Dept publication from 1996 - "New National Calf Tagging and Registration Schemes"
I was incorrect in my previous post that there wasn't a calf tagging scheme in place in 1999. Put it down to auld age but I do remember tagging with the first yellow jumbo tag and thinking how silly the calf looked with this giant tag hanging outta one ear and it seemed to be nearly as big as it's head

Edit - apologies the pics are sideways.

wrangler wrote: »

There must have been a lot of farmers not needing money when i needed it, it was money for jam, why didn't everyone maximise it then.
Makes no difference to me now, but I was sick when i read the IFJ this week, doom and gloom etc, it was reminding me that in the nineties it was always reprting increases and extra subsidies.

I dont know, maybe they didnt exist yet? Most young farmers today were young children in the 90s. Maybe they had different types of farms that wasnt making the jam that was wanted? Hill farms were never given much consideration in the design of schemes down the years - not a gripe to be honest with you, but simply a statement of fact. Even in glas, commonage was kinda lumped in on a half page with very little interest in it or money that could be made from it. There was more detail offered on the design of bird boxes than the entire commonages section. No jam there. It is ridiculous when you consider the amount of land involved there and the goal of glas itself, but that is what self-interest does - a potential ace in the pack is given the minimum possible consideration.

Either way, your response is what I would call whataboutery, and it isnt really relevant to the point of convergence. The 90s is the best part of 30 years ago. It would be the equivalent of someone in the 90s harping back to the 60s. What would your response have been in the 90s to someone talking about farmers getting in on the gravy train in the 60s?

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

What about front loading? (Which would suit me)

It favours the smaller farmer more - which I think is better.
But, it probably wouldn’t work as good as a flat payment per Ha if you had very large holdings, like you might have in hill farms?

Always around CAP time there is underhanded spin. Dept example figures excluded front loading, and then included the greening payment at the start of their table, but excluded the eco scheme payment at the end of their table - which makes the figures look worse for those on higher entitlements and makes figures for those on lower entitlement look as if they won't move much if at all.

In one word, politics.

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/department-modelling-on-cap-payments-is-misleading-inhfa/

Deleted User wrote: »

Always around CAP time there is underhanded spin. Dept example figures excluded front loading, and then included the greening payment at the start of their table, but excluded the eco scheme payment at the end of their table - which makes the figures look worse for those on higher entitlements and makes figures for those on lower entitlement look as if they won't move much if at all.

In one word, politics.

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/department-modelling-on-cap-payments-is-misleading-inhfa/

Indeed. The headline in a journal article - '54500 farmers face payment wipeout'
The facts - the farmers whos entitlements are being brough in line with the national average. Apparently getting the average rate is a wipeout. What does that make the guys on the less than average rate then? You know, the people this is designed to give a fair chance to? It is very disingenuous.
Then you have a guy in another article telling all farmers to stand together on the issue. These fellas would want to get real. It is actually insulting to peoples intelligence.

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Indeed. The headline in a journal article - '54500 farmers face payment wipeout'
The facts - the farmers whos entitlements are being brough in line with the national average. Apparently getting the average rate is a wipeout. What does that make the guys on the less than average rate then? You know, the people this is designed to give a fair chance to? It is very disingenuous.
Then you have a guy in another article telling all farmers to stand together on the issue. These fellas would want to get real. It is actually insulting to peoples intelligence.

I said it almost a decade ago now, a Romanian by the name of Dacian Ciolos was a better friend to low income Irish farmers than many other Irish people involved in Agriculture.

I don't read Pravda but I bet the other article you refer to mentions a magic money tree where no cuts are made only increases. A magic tree every fool on the continent knows doesn't exist. All BS of course designed to bring about a least worse political outcome for that minority agenda.

grassroot1

wrangler wrote: »

There was maximum number of subs you could draw per Hectare.
It was a job for christmas week here to sit down and make sure to get the maximum number for our hectares,

Plus extensification at two stocking rates which was added to beep premiums and suckler cow payments 26 pounds at the lower rate not sure what the higher rate was

Bitten & Hisses

wrangler wrote: »

It's a fact of life, or at least it was,..... that maximising subsidies is vital to the successful running of a farm. That breathing space that extra money brings is vital to mental health, for drystock farmers anyway

The mindset to take action to maximise subsidies was not in place on this farm and with the benefit of hindsight, it was a failing. (Easy for me to say this many years later)
They were always very passive about subsidies - always claiming for what was in place, but never changing how the place operated to get the most out of the various schemes.
We have a below average SFP, but to be honest it's pure luck that it isn't a fraction of what it is, due to other factors influencing the stocking rate during the reference years.

_Brian

Bitten & Hisses wrote: »

The mindset to take action to maximise subsidies was not in place on this farm and with the benefit of hindsight, it was a failing. (Easy for me to say this many years later)
They were always very passive about subsidies - always claiming for what was in place, but never changing how the place operated to get the most out of the various schemes.
We have a below average SFP, but to be honest it's pure luck that it isn't a fraction of what it is, due to other factors influencing the stocking rate during the reference years.

Similar here.
We have above average but it’s circumstances rather than planning.

However.
I think the real failing in the system is that those with influence decided it would be better if farmers farmed subsidies and then sold their products at below cost to enable mega profits for processors.

grassroot1 wrote: »

Plus extensification at two stocking rates which was added to beep premiums and suckler cow payments 26 pounds at the lower rate not sure what the higher rate was

I was drawing €900/ha inc REPS for a while, it helped concentrate the mind I can tell you.
Last reform, dept took your payment and spread it over what ever you applied for in the first year so anyone that doubled their acreage since decoupling halved their entitlement value and if it was under the national average convergence click in and increased their entitlement value.
Some farmers with high values then brought it a stage further and sold most of their entitlements so their payment was small and convergence has brought them up now too even though they sold entitlements worth over a thousand each, sold at 2-3 times their value.
If that is the way it's done this time and some dairy farmers even trebling their land base, they will benefit hugely from convergence at the expense of small suckler farmers whose payments are being decimated due to convergence

Another article debunking the Departments figures.

https://www.arc2020.eu/hidden-formulas-and-agri-media-can-we-find-a-fair-cap-in-ireland/

wrangler wrote: »

I was drawing €900/ha inc REPS for a while, it helped concentrate the mind I can tell you.
Last reform, dept took your payment and spread it over what ever you applied for in the first year so anyone that doubled their acreage since decoupling halved their entitlement value and if it was under the national average convergence click in and increased their entitlement value.
Some farmers with high values then brought it a stage further and sold most of their entitlements so their payment was small and convergence has brought them up now too even though they sold entitlements worth over a thousand each, sold at 2-3 times their value.
If that is the way it's done this time and some dairy farmers even trebling their land base, they will benefit hugely from convergence at the expense of small suckler farmers whose payments are being decimated due to convergence

Would the suckler farmer have options to do something similar with their own entitlements?
In reality, I feel you are giving quite extreme examples. For example, your 500 ewes vs the hill man with 50 ewes. It is easy to pick out flaws in every idea, but the goal of giving everyone the same starting point is patently the fairest also.

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Would the suckler farmer have options to do something similar with their own entitlements?
In reality, I feel you are giving quite extreme examples. For example, your 500 ewes vs the hill man with 50 ewes. It is easy to pick out flaws in every idea, but the goal of giving everyone the same starting point is patently the fairest also.

If Iremember rightly the hill guy had 200 acres.
My farm isn't big at 120 acres, extreme is a bit of an overstatement.
Any way there'll be plenty of lobbyists fighting everyones corner so all to play for still.

einn32

There is a fair amount of tinkering going on with payments, tax relief, grants and inspections I'd allege given the anecdotal evidence I heard over the years. Like any system some people play it.