“Where will the money come from to plant crops?”

The crowd said it all on Friday night, both in the numbers they came and the fact that they stood in the cold outside when the room couldn’t hold everyone. They had travelled from areas as far as Knock in Mayo and Tralee in Co Kerry, and from the main tillage areas of the country. Tillage farmers are in crisis and say they now need support to stay in business.

“Where’s the money going to come from to plant crops for the coming year?” Those were the words of Wicklow woman Elizabeth Fahy and it summed up the feeling of many farmers in the room.

Ronan Lynch of D-Side Agri, a merchant’s business in Co Louth, said “farmers are coming in that can’t pay bills”. Young Laois farmer Rory Doyle asked the minister: “How do you see a future for young tillage farmers in this country? Because from what I’m hearing tonight I don’t hear a future.”

It wasn’t nice listening as two farmers said they encouraged their children not to study agriculture and to pull out of an agricultural course they had entered.

Henry Burns listened to Minister Heydon describe tough budget negotiations, but said “tillage farmers now face serious negotiations with their merchants and co-ops”.

Brian Lazenby said tillage was getting little funding from the national exchequer.

Lack of profit was the main thing, but farmers displayed anger at many other rules and regulations. A number brought up the three-crop rule and some blamed it for the glut of oats on the market, which now needed to find an export home as there is no demand for them here, despite millions of tonnes of grain being imported each year. The use of non-Irish grain in whiskey was another issue, while one farmer described the rules around bringing a combine from the UK to Ireland, while straw with blackgrass comes in droves from across the water without any paperwork.

Tillage farmers are not happy, land is exiting the sector every week that goes by and the Government has failed its target to increase tillage area to 360,000ha by 2025 and at this stage the 400,000ha target by 2030 is laughable without any intervention.