More SCEP Training Venues Needed – IFA
IFA Livestock Chair Declan Hanrahan has called on the Minister for Agriculture to provide more training events for farmers in the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme. He highlighted the need for these events to be run at convenient locations for farmers to attend and that they must be run in the afternoon or evening so that the time is agreeable to all farmers.
To remain part of SCEP suckler farmers must complete the training course before November 15th. This has caused concern among many farmers who have been unable to complete this training thus far due to travel time, timings of training meetings and inconvenient dates. Mr. Hanrahan said that the Minister “must be cognisant of the areas where the greatest needs are, and all farmers must be provided with a number of options within close proximity to their location.”
He outlined that it is unacceptable for farmers to be expected to undertake long journeys to complete a training course which has only been launched in five locations countrywide.
There must be a number of venues available to farmers in all counties and the dates and locations of these must be announced immediately to allow farmers make arrangements to attend and avoid the stress of potentially undertaking long and unnecessary journeys to attend one of the events taking place this week.”
Finally, he highlighted the vital supports that SCEP payments will provide for farmers and the duty that is placed upon the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to ensure that there are no obstacles in the way of farmers meeting the requirements of the scheme.
