ICMSA say Budget 2026 must support positive farmer efforts on Climate Change

Speaking at the Agriculture and Climate Change conference organised by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine and opened by An Taoiseach, ICMSA President Denis Drennan said that despite massive challenges Irish farmers were completely engaged in the effort to address climate change and the results and data were now showing the fruits of those efforts. Mr. Drennan said it is quite clear that farmers are committed and ‘on board’ with the plans to mitigate climate change but he stressed that farmers needed reassurance that those plans still rested on ‘the three pillars of sustainability’: economic, environmental and social and that the environmental dimension was not going to be the sole focus to the exclusion of social and economic.

“There are challenges ahead that will have to be faced and even leaving aside the very significant and unfair anomalies in the accountancy framework used for measuring emissions, the most obvious challenge is the ongoing failure of Government to ‘step up’ and support farmers in their efforts to carry through the changes that the Government itself is urging on the farmers. It’s this failure of the Government to support its own policies and recommendations that is hampering even more encouraging results and data”, said Mr. Drennan.

The ICMSA President cited as notable examples the failure of Government to implement the recommendations of the Dairy Vision and Beef and Sheep Vision reports and the failure of successive Budgets to put measures in place to work collaboratively with farmers to address aspects of climate change.

“Irish agriculture is leading the way globally in meeting the climate challenge and ICMSA believes that farmers can, and will, do more if properly supported. But that’s going to mean that policymakers stop overlooking the daily and real obstacles to farmers as they adopt and change and start ‘going at’ these obstacles in a meaningful way, whether it’s destructive income volatility or animal health or margin-grabbing and unfair corporate and professional practices. The Government just has to stop looking on at this and coming up with reasons for not taking action; there’s a positive momentum building behind the farmer efforts to address environmental issues and sustainability and that momentum could be increased by a few straightforward decisions on the part of Government that signal a willingness to stop talking and actually ‘do’”, said Mr. Drennan.

Urging the Government to use Budget 2026 to signal that much more proactive approach, Mr. Drennan said the DAFM should be recommending measures that would accelerate the positive measures already under way, like a specific agri-environment scheme for intensive farmers, greater supports for Dairy Beef production given its climate credentials, and a taxation regime – including measures on VAT – that incentivise farmers to invest in climate-efficient equipment and measures.  Mr. Drennan said that the Government has a choice: “Work with farmers to make more progress or ultimately pay the fines that will be levied because Ireland falls short on the emissions targets that could have been hit if we’d had the support. That’s choice, really, and Budget 2026 is where we’ll see if the Government understands that choice and has made a decision that is logical on both the environmental and financial fronts”, he concluded.

Ends        5 June 2025

Denis Drennan, 086-8389401

President, ICMSA

Or

Cathal MacCarthy, 087-6168758

ICMSA Press Office