DEAR SIR: The time is long overdue for farming and the Irish food industry to counteract the ever-burgeoning vegan campaign. At every hand’s turn we are bombarded with lurid images of calves being “cruelly” weaned, lambs being prepared for market and so on. As if that was not bad enough, we are the whipping boys for climate activists with farmers being blamed for all the ills of the world. Of course, no allowance is made for the amount of carbon sequestration that goes hand in hand with grassland farming

A good reputation, once lost, is very hard to restore and on a daily basis the good reputation of Irish farming is being whittled away.

Well what can be done about it? As soon as possible a strong working group should be set up consisting of the food industry, ABP, Dairygold, Kerry etc and the farming organisations, who will have to put past differences aside on this occasion. It is important that this body should be as broad-based as possible, representing the Irish agriculture livestock sector as a whole. I would suggest that Matt Dempsey and Dr Pat Wall would be invited as co-chairs to set up this body.

Personnel, no matter how good, are of no use if they are not properly resourced and they will need a very substantial budget to make any impression, particularly as veganism has been given a good head start. This money is there to be found taking into account that Irish food is a multi-billon euro industry.

As a short-term measure, while all this is being set up, a lead could be taken from Grennans of Rath (a privately owned feed company) who set up its own billboard campaign showing farmers and their families hand-feeding lambs and similar images.

This is a matter of urgency, I anxiously await developments.