As the curtain slowly closes in on another year, farmers will sink to their hunkers and look back on an “annus horribilis”. The extreme weather wreaked havoc on farms and farm families.

Anybody who has had a bad or a stressful day at the office will know how much it can take out of you when you fall onto the couch that night. Think how it must have been for farmers who could do nothing to alleviate the problems with weather and fodder for weeks and months on end.

Recently I was sifting through some old farm news reports I had complied and were broadcasted 20 years ago when I first joined RTÉ. I am not joking when I say that I could cut and paste the stories, changing the names of the various farming spokespeople and politicians and they wouldn’t be lost if printed today in this newspaper or broadcast on air, for the problems back then remain today. The farmers’ fight is never ending. And, at the heart of it, it is only a fight for fairness, rather than special treatment.

At a recent meeting with farmers, the current generation are arguably facing into even tougher times than their parents before them. That is a brave statement when I read back on those old reports. Because farming has always faced challenges and farmers have overcome these thanks to their in-built resilience. Any older farmer can certainly regale us about the lean times of yesteryear, but now there are newer and more complicated challenges facing food production.

There is a new CAP being finalised in Brussels, which will place even more demands on farmers – particularly if the budget is cut. Brexit is Brexit and as IFA president Joe Healy said recently, whatever the final outcome, Irish agriculture is in damage limitation mode one way or the other. And, of course, there is the looming challenge facing all sectors, not least farming, of reducing carbon emissions. This won’t come without a cost and there is no way around it. Then there are the labour shortages looming large for expanding dairy farmers.

While demand for food will grow rapidly alongside a demand for it to be produced in a more environmentally sustainable manner, the targeted campaign against traditional stables such as dairy and beef from an environmental, ideological and health perspective poses a threat not necessarily in terms of slowing demand but rather deriding farmers by some for what they do. Imagine being made feel your honest day’s work is, well, somehow dishonest? In the grand scheme of things, it barely registers on the radar of issues, nevertheless it is a stone in the shoe that farmers could do without I’m sure.

As an industry, agriculture is often on the back foot when it comes to responding to criticism rationally or in debating the issues with the general public. That said, in the main, EU consumers do have the back of farmers and they are respected and appreciated by the vast majority who consume their produce.

But as we turn the key on 2019 with all of those challenges on the horizon, we haven’t even mentioned farm-gate price or weather. Farmers have often been compared to the boy who cried wolf but there isn’t much more wriggle room for bad luck. The Government and processors should be cognisant of that reality.

Christmas cheer

Now we are into December, maybe we can begin to talk about Christmas, play Christmas music, switch on Christmas lights, begin our Christmas shopping, write to Santa Claus, have Christmas drinks and maybe even put up the Christmas decorations? What? What do you mean that all happened weeks ago?