Alan Jagoe from Co Cork was elected chair of Agri Aware at its AGM last Thursday. The Carrigaline dairy and tillage farmer takes over from Richard Moeran.

“We have great stories to tell as farmers and the agri food industry,” Jagoe told the Irish Farmers Journal following his election. “It’s incumbent on us as an organisation to tell our story, because if we don’t tell it someone else will tell it on our behalf.

“As farmers, and as food producers, and the agri food industry, we have the facts to tell,” said the former president of Macra na Feirme and the European young farmers’ organisation CEJA.

Jagoe said the messaging behind farming needs to move away from the emotive campaigns used by vegan organisations and instead push the positive message of the healthy food Irish farmers produce.

He made the point that consumers should be able to get all the nutrients they need from a balanced diet, rather than supplements.

“These are the stories we need to tell people. We need to leave out the hysteria, leave out the emotion and present the facts. We need to present it in a way that the public understands and that isn’t done in a biased manner,” he added.

Agri Aware will be running its Open Farm initiative again this year on the May bank holiday weekend.

“Rural Ireland is shaped by generations. You can travel to a lot of countries in the world that don’t stack up the way we do in Ireland.

“We have fantastic standards in terms of animal welfare, environmental, water quality. We must continue to improve in everything we do.”

Also at the AGM, Teddy Cashman (IFAC) and Charles Smith (ABP and Kepak) took up their new roles on the board, succeeding Tom Cunniffe (Aurivo) and Edmond Harty (Dairymaster).