Pat Ryan of Liffey Mills called for action to help tillage farmers. He was speaking on the Irish Farmers Journal stand on Wednesday at the National Ploughing Championships.
Ryan said: “The Food Vision [group] has spent ages on an interim report. Tillage is going down the swanny. Narrow it down to three or four points and go with it rather than using a scattergun approach.”
Ryan said that the ripple effect of the new nitrates derogation limits is resulting in land being lost from tillage and beef farms. He added that this is a barrier to entry for young people coming into the sector.
Schemes and payment
He commented that the Tillage Incentive Scheme needs to be rolled out further and said that there could be something like the suckler cow payment for tillage.
He also suggested there could be help with infrastructure for protein processing in feed mills, as there is more preparation needed with beans.
“As part of an overall tillage scheme, there probably should be grant aid for handling beans,” he said.
Continuing on from that, Ryan said that work needs to be done on developing carbon footprints for tillage crops in order to add value to feed. Having that carbon footprint could help to add a bonus to milk or meat for those who purchase an Irish ration.
“Definitely we should be looking at a carbon number for tillage, there’s no question about that,” he added.
You can hear all of the tillage talks from the Irish Farmers Journal stand at the Ploughing on the Tillage Podcast, out every Thursday at 4pm on www.ifj.ie/podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
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