A major shake-up of the farming subsidies scheme has won Tynwald backing.
Agriculture Minister Richard Ronan said the changes to the Countryside Care Scheme – now rebranded the Agricultural Development Scheme – will support farmers to become more market-focused while helping them manage the Manx landscape.
But plans to introduce an ‘active farmer’ clause to target payments to those managing land and carrying out agricultural activity have been put on hold for a year to allow more engagement with the industry.
Mr Ronan said the active farmer clause would have had a significant effect on some tenancy arrangements and its introduction now could have caused problems for landlords and tenants.
Speaker Steve Rodan said the issue had been identified very late in the day. He said it had simply not recognised the problems of CCS recipients who rent out land to other active farmers.
The other changes, which include lowering the acreage needed to qualify for payment, weighting payments to smaller farms and offering additional support for young farmers, were all supported by Tynwald.
Graham Cregeen (Malew and Santon), who first raised concerns over the impact of the active farmer clause, said he would have liked to have seen a £160,000 cap on payments. He said there were only about four farmers who get more than £100,000.
Leonard Singer (Ramsey) said taxpayers’ money should not be paid out to ‘gentleman farmers’.
Concerns were also raised about lowering the acreage requirement while the active farmer clause is not yet in place.
Juan Turner MLC said he was cautious about supporting a scheme that was only about ‘85 per cent there’.
He claimed DEFA had conflicting policies with a food strategy on one hand and at the same time limiting support to some of the main producers. ‘We are penalising those who are producing and supporting those who are not,’ he said.