"It’s been a very quick three months since I declared for the presidency of Macra – they’ve flown by. You’re going from week to week, from event to event, constantly tallying, constantly on the phone organising,” Macra’s 36th president, James Healy, told the Irish Farmers Journal immediately after his election on Tuesday.

“Trying to coordinate that with a full-time job was fun, and I firstly thank my employer Wisetek for their understanding. They are allowing me a two-year leave of absence to serve as president, for which I’m grateful.

“There were huge crowds at each of the six hustings. It shows that Macra members are interested in the decision-making within of the organisation,” he continued. “It means the role of the president is important to all members, with so many turning out.”

With 91 of the 151 Macra branches nationwide voting in his favour, Healy’s win over Odile Evans was fairly decisive. “It’s very likely that, within clubs, the margins were very tight. It just happened that they fell my way. Odile is a very strong candidate, and I’m sure this won’t be the last we see of her,” says Healy.

Asked if he, coming from a farming background but not farming directly, is typical of Macra’s membership, Healy says: “It’s probably a result of the fact that there are not many farms now that can support two people.

“My father is working off-farm as well; my mother ends up minding the cattle most of the time. My uncle is a dairy farmer, and I would have spent a lot of time with him, particularly last year when he got his hip done.”

However, he points to the breadth of Macra’s membership that extends beyond farmers. “Macra is a wide-ranging organisation; it’s not just young farmers now. They are a percentage of our membership, and we do need to remember that, at our heart and at our core, agriculture is the thing that binds most Macra members together. The vast majority of members relate well to farming and rural life,” he says.

“That said, a huge number of Macra members are professionals now, from a wide range of careers – and that’s adding to the organisation. It’s good to get some outside perspective on agricultural policy matters. It’s good for their views to be feeding into the argument as well. They educate us, and take us out of the bubble.”

Listen to "Macra president elect James Healy" on Spreaker.

When asked how he would pitch Macra to a 17-year-old from the country, James says: “There is a huge variety of things in Macra, it’s not just about farming – although I’ve seen a huge spate of tractor runs lately, and fellas love to wash their tractor and take it out on a Sunday, all the better if it’s for charity.

“People join for a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes farmers will tell you they do it to get away from the farm. We have our six key programme areas – agriculture, sport, travel, public speaking, performing arts and community involvement – and agriculture is a very important one of those.”

“We are lobbying on behalf of young farmers, be it on the next CAP; we would like to do work on farm safety, which we are already doing through our Skillnet programme; educating young farmers is a huge part of what we do as well.

“Then there are competitions, there is the social interaction, all the opportunities that Macra provides. Agriculture might be the reason you join, but all that activity is what gets people to stay.”

James Healy says his key ambition is to increase membership and participation in Macra, aiming to improve the organisation with more members feeding into and directing its policy, while gaining from the personal development opportunities.

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