Louth IFA holds protest at county council buildings

Members of Louth IFA held a demonstration outside Louth County Council buildings in Dundalk last Monday, ahead of the Louth County Council February meeting, to lobby councillors as part of a national campaign, seeking fairness for farmers.

A spokesperson told the Dundalk Democrat that there was “a plethora of issues but the core ones are that the payments coming from CAP are being taken away from food production and moved towards environmental measures”.

The EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) is a partnership between agriculture and society, and between Europe and its farmers.

The spokesperson told the Dundalk Democrat that “the CAP budget is like a swiss army knife which is supposed to fix all objectives. New environmental measures that are coming out are being funded out of CAP payments.

“We want CAP money to be left for food production money, which is income for farmers, which ultimately subsidises the production of food, but ultimately again, subsidises the consumption of food.

“Food is cheaper in the supermarket because of CAP. It needs to be kept that way or its going to fuel food inflation because real prices of food is going to go up.

“This is a real issue for everybody in the State and in the EU – not just for farmers and the production of food. This is a food consumption and food price issue as much as anything else.”

The demonstration, which is part of a national campaign, aims to lobby councillors ahead of this year's local elections, as well as local representatives ahead of this year's European elections and the General Election.

“We're trying to put these issues front and centre and keep them front and centre”, the spokesperson said. “This campaign will run over a number of months,

“We're looking for an environmental budget to fund environmental measures and leave food production money alone.”
Farmers at the demonstration last Monday, stressed that they did not have an issue with environmental, or nature restoration measures.

Dairy farmer, Kevin Sweeney, said “it's not that we have a problem in doing environmental measures, but when the bar is being changed after every two years, it's very hard to justify borrowing money to take on with this measure.

“You borrow €50,000 and it takes five or six years to pay this back, maybe 10. I personally got an EU grant to build a milking parlour, invest money. Our Teagasc advisors told us to push on [with dairy expansion], they've told us to do all this, and everything changed. 

“Now we're being told to reduce.” Mr Sweeney stressed that he doesn't think farmers will have issues with environmental and nature restoration measures, but added that they need clarification that if they have to spend the money to do it, that they will get time to make the changes.

Grain farmer and vegetable grower, John Carroll, told the Dundalk Democrat that “there is cheap imports coming in, undermining what we do, and its a huge huge issue. Our expenses are so high – in fertilisers, seeds, sprays, and regulations. The regulations to get us Bord Bia approved, to be Department [of Agriculure] approved. That's just to get the crop into the ground and to get things going.

“Then you have diesel, the price of diesel, and the one that's affecting everybody, is wages.”
Mr Carroll said that getting labour is a big problem for farmers. “We're looking further afield all the time and it is harder and harder to get good people.”

He continued, “And the cost of growing – our grain two years ago, it went up in price, but today its down below the cost of production. You'd wonder today, will I sow spring barley or not.

“The land will dry up, March-April, that will happen, I'm not annoyed about that. Spring does come, even though its almost the end of February and its been a very wet month. March and April will come and the ground will dry up, and there will be crops in the ground. But will it be viable to do that? Or just leave the ground fallow, leave it for another year and see what will happen? That's where we are – from a grain farmer's point of view.”

The IFA has said that protests will take place at county council buildings across the country ahead of the local and European elections this June.