Farm safety, land mobility and funding issues were all on young farmers’ minds at a Carrigaline Macra na Feirme event this past Monday night.

“Shaping Farming for the Future” was the title of the conference and attendees heard from Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney, Austin Finn from the Land Mobility service, Tadgh Buckley from AIB and Martin O’Halloran of the Health and Safety Authority (HSA). Former Macra president Alan Jagoe chaired the conference.

Minister Coveney admitted that he was relishing the opportunity to talk about the dairy industry, having mostly discussed the beef industry for six months. The Minister said that the abolition of quotas represented an important phase for rural Ireland for many years, creating huge opportunities for economic growth.

“I have watched New Zealand, which is similar to Ireland, with the same output as Ireland in 1984, to now being four times our output, growing at 5% per year every year,” the Minister said.

He said that markets would have to be found outside the usual markets for the 3bn extra litres of milk that will be produced. He envisaged an extra 300,000 dairy cows in the system. He urged dairy farmers who are expanding to move with caution and to do the figures on a price of 28c/litre.

But he cautioned those in expansion mode “Anyone who is thinking of expanding and is not already proven to be running an efficient, cost-effective business, is a fool.”

Martin O’Halloran from the HSA painted a stark picture of the level of farm deaths that Irish agriculture has sustained over the last 10 years.

O’Halloran asked the crowd of 200 to stand and look around at the number of farmers that had been killed in farm accidents in that period. Twenty eight deaths have occurred to date this year. The figure is stark and includes five children and two women. The figure of 28 also represents 55% of all workplace fatalities.

Tadgh Buckley from AIB urged caution as milk quotas are abolished.

“Most people in this room do not remember a time without milk quotas,” Buckley said.

“It is important to manage price risk and part of this is ensuring that systems are kept low-cost,” he added.

Buckley noted that land rental prices were continuing to rise and he expressed concern that only 45% of farms had a successor identified, while only 25% of farms allowed the successor to be actively involved.

Austin Finn from the Land Mobility Service said that 54 seminars and workshops have been held on land mobility to date and there are now 53 arrangements with 232 clients on the books.