ICMSA say proposed budget for CAP post 2027 is “a fairytale” and “make-believe economics”  

Speaking following a meeting with Elizabeth Werner, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, the President of ICMSA, Denis Drennan said that the first priority for the Irish Government must be to secure an adequate CAP budget under the MFF negotiations. Mr. Drennan said that ‘adequate’ in that context meant as a minimum being index-linked relative to the current budget and a much more focussed commitment on keeping pace with the actual true cost of farming and primary food production in the EU today.

“We are really at the point where – without an extra allocations of funding – CAP will just become inevitably irrelevant and, so far as the ‘Green’ requirements go, those will be the first to be dispensed with and put aside as farmers realise that there isn’t enough to adequately support farm incomes and all the other requirements. That’s just the reality of the situation and that’s what we told Ms. Werner: the current proposed budget is completely inadequate to achieve the stated objectives of CAP. It’s not a real budget, it’s a fairytale”, he said.

“It’s long been obvious that the current CAP has already got too many retrofitted ‘bolt-on’ stipulations and requirements and, as a result, is failing in its primary mandated function of delivering a sustainable income to the farmers producing high quality food daily for the populations of the EU. These retrofitted ‘bolt-ons’ like the Nature Restoration law and Biodiversity Crisis must have their own separate and specific budgets; the EU simply can’t keep on expecting an already inadequate budget to cover more and more areas. Something has got to give and what’s ‘giving’ here is the original design of supporting quality food production at farmer-producer level so that highest quality food is affordable to ordinary EU citizens. This proposed Post 2027 budget – set against its targets and ambitions – is not serious planning or administration; this is fairytale stuff; it is simply ‘make believe’ economics”, said Mr. Drennan.

Mr. Drennan said that CAP must refocus on the original issue of sustainable farm incomes and curbing the destructive volatility and extreme swings in farm income. “That’s where it has to go, where it has to focus. It has to try and bring incomes and conditions in farming someway into alignment with comparable sectors. And if we haven’t even got the Budget – much less the administrative will – then we are really in trouble here. The Budget is going to have to adjusted upwards and significantly so”, he concluded.

Ends         20 March 2026

Denis Drennan, 086-8389401

President, ICMSA.

Or

Cathal MacCarthy, 087-6168758

ICMSA Press office