Deer Farming Industry
Deer farming in Ireland started circa 1986. At present there are approximately 200 farmers producing deer.
The development of deer farming has been influenced by EU policies designed to counter overproduction of some grass based agricultural enterprises.
Deer were never included in the livestock premium schemes and as such a deer enterprise was not eligible for any of the decoupled single farm payments in the Republic of Ireland.
In a mixed farm of cattle/sheep or grain and deer, if the land under deer was declared in the Area Aid form and was used for calculating extensification that land was then included in determining the value of entitlements per hectare. Deer farmers can the same as any other farmer purchase or lease entitlements with or without land. The cost of entitlements in 2010 depends on their value with the lower ones (less than 200 per hectare) making their face value and higher ones (400 - 700 per hectare plus) making 1.2 -1.8 multiple of their face value with the top of the range (1000 -<1000) making 2.0 2.25 of their face value. If buying entitlements without land there is a claw-back to the national reserve of 15% so lets say a person sold 20 entitlements the buyer of them can claim only 17 entitlements.
Purchasing entitlements might be interesting to deer farmers only is that they have what are called free hectares (land with no entitlements) these are necessary if buying entitlements without land. Each entitlement regardless of its value must have a hectare of land to claim it on.
Another issue to be taken into account regarding the purchase of entitlements is that the scheme is to run until the end of 2012. There is a belief out there that it will not just terminate in 2012 without some sort of follow-up support and perhaps one will need to have entitlements to avail of any follow-up scheme.
Deer farmers without Single Farm Payment Entitlements should look seriously at purchasing some. Keep an eye on the farming papers advertising the sale of entitlements in the months before the Single Farm Payment closing date, or make contact with your local auctioneers trading in land and entitlements.
