Capital Investment Vital for Pig Sector Under Tams Ii
IFA National Pigs and Pig meat Committee Chairman, Pat O’Flaherty said “Pig farmers are extremely dissatisfied with the details of the TAMS II released in a statement by Minister Coveney this week.
“Minister Coveney announced in January that there would be capital investment grants provided to the pig sector but it appears from the documents released this week that he is reneging on this promise completely“.
Mr. O’Flaherty said “In the past, pig farmers have only been able to access funding to make changes required under legislation such as for sow housing or to build slurry storage for the Nitrates Regulations. This meant that during the period of the worst returns in pig producers living memory, farmers were forced to invest in capital that would not return one cent extra to them in their sales. Despite this, producers did invest and carried out the work, however this meant that they were unable to invest in vital repairs on their units”.
The IFA National Pigs and Pig meat Committee strongly argued that pig producers are grant aided for the refurbishment of finisher houses in this RDP as this is where our efficiency is being challenged. The Irish pig industry has made significant ground in reaching the targets of the ‘Food Harvest 2020’ despite an extremely difficult trading environment of record high feed costs and without investment on our units; we will start to lose ground against our competitors.
The Minister must rethink how this grant aid is provided to pig producers as what is outlined is simply unacceptable, Mr. O’Flaherty concluded.