CAP post-2027 · Our submission, Part II

Pay the movement, not the birthday.

Part II of our CAP submission takes the early retirement package from the beef plan and runs it across sheep, tillage and dairy — so land moves to the next generation in every sector, not just ours.

Submitted by Brendan Kennedy  ·  Working farmer, Co. Tipperary  ·  July 2026

⬇ Download Part II (Word) Read Part I — the beef plan Read Part III — the forgotten sectors

Everything in the current system rewards being under 40 or being family. The young farmer top-up, the National Reserve, the 60% TAMS rate — all tied to a birth cert. Agricultural Relief and consanguinity relief — tied to a surname. Not one payment in the Irish system fires at the moment land actually changes hands. None has since the Early Retirement Scheme closed in 2008.

The fix is one principle: money flows only when land moves from a retiring farmer to a new entrant — family or not.

The mechanism is the one set out in Part I: the retiring farmer, over a qualifying age, transfers by sale, gift, succession or a lease of at least five years to a trained young farmer or new entrant. The retiree draws a fixed-term annual retirement payment with the dignity clause — keeps the house and a paddock, pension untouched. The entrant draws an establishment top-up on the transferred land and inherits its scheme history, paired with the EU's €300,000 young farmer starter pack. Here's what that looks like in each sector.

Sheep — the flock passes on with the hill

The Sheep Improvement Scheme pays €12 a ewe, up to €25 combined with the new welfare scheme — and the Department has already opened it to new entrants, which proves the entrant-side door can be opened. But the flock is aging, hill flocks worst of all, and commonage sits with older farmers on margins too thin to tempt anyone in. It goes idle rather than transferring.

• A flock-transfer top-up on the Sheep Improvement Scheme: when flock and ground move together to a new entrant on a five-year-plus term, both sides draw a per-ewe bonus for the first five years.
• The scheme record moves with the flock, so the entrant doesn't start cold.
• Commonage shares transfer inside the package, so hill ground stays grazed instead of drifting to abandonment.

Tillage — turn conacre into continuity

Protein Aid, straw incorporation and the new €30 million tillage support scheme all exist — yet the tillage area keeps falling as ground gets bid away by dairy expansion and anaerobic digestion. Entry is walled off by machinery capital, and retiring growers let land on 11-month conacre: short, insecure, and useless to a young entrant who needs to invest in rotation and soil.

• A Tillage Continuity payment that rewards the retiring grower for converting conacre into a five-year-plus lease to a new tillage entrant.
• Conditional on the land staying in tillage for the term — not flipped to grass or digester feedstock.
• A machinery-share or equipment line under TAMS for the entrant, so the capital wall is a hurdle, not a full stop.
• Start the entrant at the technology frontier — precision-ag kit (GPS guidance, variable-rate spreading and spraying, section control, satellite and drone imagery) explicitly eligible under that line, with an establishment grant for the incoming farmer. It cuts inputs, saves money and lifts yields — and a scheme that equips every new entrant with it builds a rural agri-tech sector as a side effect, not an afterthought.

Dairy — fund the structure, not the headage

Dairy has no coupled payment to bolt onto — and its profitability is exactly what locks entrants out. Land price, expansion pressure and a nitrates derogation renewed only to 2028 under tighter conditions mean entry needs enormous capital and secure ground. So fund the structure instead:

• Registered share-farming and phased succession partnerships — the retiring farmer tapers out over five to seven years while the entrant builds equity in the herd, with the retirement payment carrying the taper.
• Open the €25,000 Succession Farm Partnership credit to non-family — renewal can't depend on having a son or daughter who wants the parlour.
• Ring-fence derogation and stocking flexibility for registered new entrants, so the nitrates squeeze doesn't close the door before they start.
• Let verified precision-ag data carry the proof — GPS fertiliser and slurry records, variable-rate application evidence — the way other member states have already had accepted in their derogation cases.

The common thread

A retiring farmer and a new entrant negotiating a lease blind — no reference for what ground, a flock or a herd is really worth — is the same information gap as the factory price. Land mobility needs transparency too. That's the gap this site was built to close at the factory gate, and any transfer scheme should build the same principle in: published reference values, so neither side negotiates in the dark.