The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has been challenged by TDs to explain why some growers were “excluded” from the horticulture support scheme.
The government launched the Horticulture Crisis Fund (HCF) last month to deliver a “once-off payment to growers of horticulture that are most affected by the continued high level of input costs.” But both the Sinn Féin spokesperson for agriculture, Claire Kerrane, and the Fianna Fáil TD for Longford-Westmeath, Joe Flaherty, have queried why “certain growers” were excluded from the scheme.
According to Minister Charlie McConalogue, while it was recognized that “all horticulture growers had been impacted by the challenges facing the sector,” evidence suggests that some vegetables and crops were more “significantly challenged” than others.
Under the terms of the scheme, the sectors eligible included brown mushrooms, heated strawberries, field vegetables – excluding potatoes – field salad crops, apples, vertically farmed greens, and glasshouse high wire crops.
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