Farmers have relied on the EU for steady incomes under the Common Agricultural Policy - costing some 40 billion euros ($39 billion) a year - but in future will have meet tougher environmental and animal welfare standards to receive payouts from Brussels.

Many are now looking at alternative ways of making a living from the countryside.

Greene's cattle farm nestles in 46 hectares (110 acres) of Ireland's best farming land, but his investments and long term plans may be thrown into doubt by the reforms.

"Planning for the future is very difficult in the light of ongoing reforms in EU farm policy. If the support mechanisms in place now are removed, it is hard to know if further investments in livestock will reap their worth in the long term," he said.

EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler was due to unveil his plans on July 10 and has said he would use the mid-term review to increase spending on rural development, taking more money from traditional crop subsidies and aid payments.

SINGLE PAYMENT PLANNED

The most controversial part of Fischler's new proposals is a plan to replace product-related subsidies with one single payment per farmer based on previous payments. This will also be dependent on strict animal welfare and environmental standards.

Drafts of the proposals show that farmers receiving more than 300,000 euros ($297,000) a year from EU coffers would have their aid capped and all direct payments would be trimmed by three percent a year to fund higher rural development spending.

The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) said its members were concerned the new system would drain off money to help restructure the rural economies of east European countries expected to join the EU soon.

And the proposals come at a politically sensitive time, ahead of a second Irish referendum on the Nice treaty which contains a set of reforms considered essential for EU enlargement. The referendum is likely to be held in October.

"Farmers over here are very disillusioned but I think that we should vote 'yes' for the Nice treaty because we cannot begrudge poor farmers coming in from the east in the interest of peace above all," Greene said.

The IFA also said it supported a yes vote to the Nice treaty, but said it was unfair that such a major reform should follow so quickly the changes agreed in 1999.

"Farmers need certainty, you cannot keep changing the whole support system every three years. Farmers have to be able to plan with a bit of security," an IFA official told Reuters.

FARMERS WORRIED

The idea of a gradual withdrawal of subsidies concerns Greene's wife Bridget, who manages the accounts and grapples with the endless bureaucracy involved in applying for EU funds.

As a part-time nurse and mother of four, her salary adds an important 20 percent to the family income.

"Cattle sales make up roughly 33 percent of our total income but about 23 percent of our income comes from EU farm aid...," she said.

"Without EU...payments and without our own off-farm incomes we would have to live on cattle sales alone and it would be a struggle", she said.

European Commission officials say the new reforms will not let farmers down. And, if agreed by EU governments, they will drastically simplify current procedures. There will be one flat rate payment based on the amount of those subsidies each farmer received in the last three years.

They will receive the aid regardless of whether they continue production at the same level or switch to producing something else.

"In the past, the direct payment system did not distinguish between quality and quantity, so if a farmer over-produced the EU would just buy it into storage anyway," one EU official said.