Every year in the runup to Christmas, we get a free calendar from the company which supplies our home heating oil. It’s one of those with small pages you tear off each day and each page gives you a historic fact and a piece of wisdom. The so-called wisdom can be hit-and-miss but one saying that has stuck in my mind is ‘‘Constructive disagreement is a sign of progress’’.
In other words, there’s no progress made if everyone just nods their head like a frisky horse and agrees all the time.
Despite all the talk of restructuring, farmers on the ground are yet to be convinced that any real change has taken place at the top of the organisation
This thought occurred to me watching Ear to the Ground last week with its feature on the lack of women involved in the IFA. Despite all the talk of restructuring, farmers on the ground are yet to be convinced that any real change has taken place at the top of the organisation. It seems that most of the hierarchy seem content to just sit and nod their heads.
A valid question might then be, would there be more constructive disagreement if more women were involved? But why stop with women’s involvement? What if more under 30s, or even under 40s were involved? Equally, are the over 60s properly represented?
Minorities
What about part-timers? There may be committees related to hill-farming, but do many hill-farmers hold prominent positions in the organisation? The list of minorities goes on.
But this is not to pick on the IFA. Would it be fair to say other farming representative bodies also have a harmony of comfortable men who might have the odd game of handbags but never really ask each other hard questions that might lead to a proper row?
Yes, women might be underrepresented in farming bodies and, yes, they might contribute to constructive disagreement and help overall progress. But there are also plenty of other voices missing from around the table who would also question the head-nodding consensus.
Rant over
As they say on social media, rant over. In more positive tones, we got the ewes scanned last week and the results were encouraging. You can report and track your percentages in several ways but the bottom line for us is that our mature ewes scanned at 1.6. It might not get us a full-page article in the Irish Farmers Journal but it does give us a solid base on which to build from next year.
We used Lleyn sires and given they were working with average-quality ewes in some cases, they certainly did their best.
The ewe lambs show promise too. Some were empty but 75% of those who went in lamb are having twins, meaning the future looks bright for them and their female offspring.
Now, if only the farmer rep bodies saw the value of females.
Kieran Sullivan and his brother farm part-time in Co Waterford. You can follow him on Twitter: @kieran_sullivan
’It’s very unrealistic for a woman to run a farm’ – Liveline caller