The last IFA presidential election was regarded as the most crucial for the future of the organisation. As he enters the last few months of his term of office, Joe Healy can reflect that he has stabilised the ship and helped to ensure that the IFA retained its reputation as an effective advocate for Irish family farms, one with access in the corridors of power of both Dublin and Brussels.
The next election may well be the most important for the future of the Irish family farm, particularly in the drystock sector.
The combination of Brexit and Mercosur pose the most serious threat to farm viability since the IFA was founded.
The old answers of increasing either scale or intensity are either out of reach or out of fashion.
Drystock farmers can’t compete with dairy farmers for land, and every week brings a new call for the national herd to be reduced, with the Climate Change Advisory Council adding its voice this week.
The other main danger for the IFA is that farmers will turn on each other. The last CAP reform process saw farmers with lower per-hectare payments oppose the IFA’s campaign to minimise flattening. Hill farmers and suckler farmers who traditionally sold their stock as weanlings were most vocal, and since then we have had the emergence of the INHFA and, more recently, the Beef Plan Movement.
The IFA’s current stance is for upward movement only on CAP payments. This at least keeps hopes up among lower payment recipients, while holding the line for farmers who suffered up to 35% in cuts in the last reforms – cuts that are only being fully felt this year.
The challenges for this approach are significant. It would require a bigger budget or a cut in other schemes. It will be a battle to maintain the CAP budget at its current level; the current proposal is for a 5% cut.
Other schemes, particularly environmental ones with a focus on biodiversity and carbon footprint, are currently fashionable.
In terms of avoiding cuts, the European Parliament’s new agriculture committee has just re-affirmed its support for flat payments. Among the new members of that committee is the man who as European Commissioner for Agriculture first proposed flat payments – Dacian Ciolos. Irish MEPs are to the fore in advocating this policy.
To make their case for upward-only changes to payments, the IFA will need a natural communicator as gifted as Healy, with a coherent plan for the family farm’s viability as the threat of Brexit unfolds under Boris Johnson’s unpredictable and erratic leadership.
The last IFA presidential election was regarded as the most crucial for the future of the organisation. As he enters the last few months of his term of office, Joe Healy can reflect that he has stabilised the ship and helped to ensure that the IFA retained its reputation as an effective advocate for Irish family farms, one with access in the corridors of power of both Dublin and Brussels.
The next election may well be the most important for the future of the Irish family farm, particularly in the drystock sector.
The combination of Brexit and Mercosur pose the most serious threat to farm viability since the IFA was founded.
The old answers of increasing either scale or intensity are either out of reach or out of fashion.
Drystock farmers can’t compete with dairy farmers for land, and every week brings a new call for the national herd to be reduced, with the Climate Change Advisory Council adding its voice this week.
The other main danger for the IFA is that farmers will turn on each other. The last CAP reform process saw farmers with lower per-hectare payments oppose the IFA’s campaign to minimise flattening. Hill farmers and suckler farmers who traditionally sold their stock as weanlings were most vocal, and since then we have had the emergence of the INHFA and, more recently, the Beef Plan Movement.
The IFA’s current stance is for upward movement only on CAP payments. This at least keeps hopes up among lower payment recipients, while holding the line for farmers who suffered up to 35% in cuts in the last reforms – cuts that are only being fully felt this year.
The challenges for this approach are significant. It would require a bigger budget or a cut in other schemes. It will be a battle to maintain the CAP budget at its current level; the current proposal is for a 5% cut.
Other schemes, particularly environmental ones with a focus on biodiversity and carbon footprint, are currently fashionable.
In terms of avoiding cuts, the European Parliament’s new agriculture committee has just re-affirmed its support for flat payments. Among the new members of that committee is the man who as European Commissioner for Agriculture first proposed flat payments – Dacian Ciolos. Irish MEPs are to the fore in advocating this policy.
To make their case for upward-only changes to payments, the IFA will need a natural communicator as gifted as Healy, with a coherent plan for the family farm’s viability as the threat of Brexit unfolds under Boris Johnson’s unpredictable and erratic leadership.
SHARING OPTIONS