The Government won’t be in a position to 100% mitigate the impact of farm income losses due to rising input costs, according to An Taoiseach Micheál Martin.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal in Co Wexford on Thursday, he said this will include not being able to fully mitigate the additional costs for Irish farmers associated with the war in Ukraine, such as rising fertiliser prices and other farm input inflation.

An Taoiseach acknowledged that farm income cost inflation was already occurring prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and said that this has only “gotten worse as a result” for commodities such as energy, food and “particularly fertiliser”.

He made the remarks when asked by the Irish Farmers Journal if he felt the €55m scheme announced by his colleague Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue this week to provide some farmers up to €1,000 to make silage and hay would be sufficient to mitigate the impact of income losses on farm families and rural Ireland.

‘Number of fronts’

In response, An Taoiseach said that the Government is “working on a number of fronts” when it comes to supporting farmers who are facing income losses and highlighted that Minister McConalogue has already allocated funding for the pig and tillage sectors.

He said that the €55m package is aimed at trying to “meet and alleviate some of the pressures on farmers that are undoubtedly there”.

Micheál Martin said the Government will “continue to work with farming organisations and with the farming community to see what we can do further to alleviate the pressures on them”.

The head of Government also claimed that some of the “broader measures” his cabinet has taken to mitigate the impact of cost inflation such as reducing VAT on electricity and the provision of “€200 on the electricity bill” all also apply to the “farming community”.

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