This article is from page 9 of the 2006-06-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG
ALMOST 60 per cent of Clare farmers cannot make ends meet through their farms, a new survey has revealed.
The survey, which was released today, also revealed that 40 per cent of farmers in the county plan on making major changes to their farms following the introduction of the Single Farm Payment.
The survey, which is entitled , was commissioned by the Agriculture and Rural Development Group of the Clare County Development Board and funded under the Clare LEADER Programme, by Rural Resource Development and by Teagasc.
“The lack of future development plans for farms, coupled with the ongoing decline in the actual number of farmers, is a serious issue for the future viability of farming in the county,” said Doirin Graham, Chairperson of the Agriculture and Rural Development Group.
“The enterprise culture on farms seems to have been stifled, possibly due to the lack of opportunities available under the quota/premium led production era.”
The survey, conducted by Broadmore Research, also revealed that 56 per cent of farming households had at least one other source of income besides the farm. There was a high dependence on construction and driving jobs. The main difficulty stated was time pressure affecting the running of the part-time farm.
“The most alarming finding is that 77 per cent of farmers intend to spend some, or all of their Single Farm Payment, on day-to-day farm costs,” said Pat Bogue of Broadmore Research.
“These farmers will spend an average of 70 per cent of the payment on running the farm. It is costing them money to produce, which is not only inefficient, but unsustainable.”
Those farmers who are forced to take off-farm jobs face hours in commuting time each week, with the majority of jobs centered along the Ennis-Shannon-Limerick axis. Some 59 per cent said they were satisfied following the introduction of the Single Farm Payment, even though only one-in-ten believed that they would be better off following the decoupling of payments.
“We are particularly concerned about the large proportion of the Single Farm Payment being used to support production, even though payments are now decoupled from production, and the level of dependence on off-farm income sources,” continued Ms Graham.
The survey found that half of the farmers were in receipt of a Single Farm Payment of less than €5,000.