An urgent question that demands an answer

The question itself is always interesting and worth consideration. However, right now, it has acquired an urgency that means answering it –  or at least giving some signal that you understand the question – is now approaching emergency status. Put as bluntly as the scale of the challenge demands, I am deeply concerned that at exactly the time when we, as both a sector and society, need to be positive and pro-active about the one commodity in which nature has given Ireland an incomparable advantage, we seem to be set on undermining ourselves and, in the name of some very questionable environmental precepts, effectively dismantling the economic engine that keeps most of Ireland outside the cities and larger town not just economically viable, but economically possible. 

Chipping away

The Irish dairy sector – the jewel in our farming and food-production crown – is in the process of being dismantled, herd by herd, restriction by restriction, measure by measure. That process has been underway since the current Government came into power and the ground has been pre-prepared by the platform given to a whole slew of commentators and ‘activists’ whose knowledge of farming is in directly inverse proportion to the volume with which they broadcast their opinions. They seem to know nothing but that doesn’t seem to bother them – and certainly doesn’t affect the frequency with which they are offered newspaper columns or radio shows. At some juncture that is hard to pinpoint, the Irish State seems to have lost faith in its own ability to calculate and ‘do the hard yards’ in terms of policy development and analysis. That vital work was subcontracted, or more likely, just handed over to these ever-increasing and ever-expanding NGOs and pressure groups, most of whom were in receipt of State funding that, as far as I can see, seemed to undermine decided State policy at times. 

A fatal blow?

Our best efforts notwithstanding, Irish farming suffered a serious reverse this year and Irish derogation dairy farmers suffered a, perhaps, fatal blow. The decision to mount a non-defense of our derogation and reduce from 250kg of N to 220kg of N is effectively a destocking measure of precisely the kind that the Government repeatedly assured Irish farmers was not on the agenda. It’s worth noting that again: the reduction to 220kg of N means either destocking or increasing land platform. Set against the raging inflation of leasing or purchasing land, the lowering of the nitrogen limits is a compulsory destocking measure for the 3,000 farms affected – that’s how it was intended and that’s how it’s going to work. There was no defense mounted by the Irish Government, despite data already emerging from water improvement measures showing measurable effects. We should have asked the Commission for a pause to allow the most recent measures to be analysed and to develop up-to-date data. But we didn’t. We are entitled to ask why, and the clear suspicion must be that the Irish Government – or elements within it – were perfectly happy to jump the gun on this and retreat from the derogation.

Of course, Irish Government restrictions are now regular and often and they never come alone. This year also saw the introduction of ‘banding’ which will place further stocking pressures on dairy farmers already at the end of their tether through six months of low prices and mystifyingly high input prices.

No surrender

All this should entail ICMSA and our members running up the white flag and surrendering our sector and livelihoods to the new orthodoxy. It won’t happen and it will never happen. We’ll go on arguing against this nonsense every day and with every breath and it’s not just because we know that its acceptance will mean the end of economically vibrant rural communities; it’s because we know that it is absolutely not the unarguable scientific case that it is usually presented as. ICMSA long ago realised that this debate – and it is an existential debate for our farmer members and their communities – will have to be fought and won on data and hard facts. We can’t rely on sympathy and understanding of non-rural communities; the outright propaganda and prominence afforded these ‘environmental activists’ by the general media has seen to that. We are on our own. Fine, we‘ll do it on our own.

Almost time

This is one of my last editorials as president of the ICMSA. I leave more convinced than ever that our futures and our livelihoods are both worth fighting for and can be won. The anti-farming fever will break and our position that the kind of environmental progress required is both possible and compatible with commercial family farming, will be vindicated. The ICMSA will lead, as we always have done. Not by hysteria or invective; but by example and evidence. The names may change. But the tradition, the heritage, the responsibility to look at the problem and come forward with the best workable solution for Ireland’s family farms, that will never change.