Farmer Writes: farmers don't like uncomfortable truths

“Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.”

Lines from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem The Charge of the Light Brigade. The theirs mentioned could easily refer to Irish farmers. Unfortunately, it is the last of those lines that we seem to heed when perhaps as farmers we need to reply and reason why a bit more.

With only days left in 2017, 24 of the 47 people killed in workplace accidents have been on farms. That’s over half the work place fatalities in Ireland. Half of those were children or people over 65 years of age. These would be classified as outside the working age in other industries.

Responding to a question on the future of Irish agriculture at a recent Macra panel disscussion, Dr Jason van der Velde of west Cork Rapid Response didn’t hold back.

“You can’t talk about growth and sustainability when your children are dying on your farms.”

It needed someone from outside the bubble to call it as he saw it. Negative comment to our industry from within is generally not welcomed. Sometimes even commentary on reality on our farms is equally frowned upon.

Perhaps we have been overly dismissive of critical thinking and robust questioning and when it has occurred the industry may have been too defensive. There is no harm in either of these.

Alternative viewpoint

While criticism for criticism’s sake is of little value, there is always merit in listening to an alternative viewpoint.

There is an uncomfortable level of disconnect in Irish agriculture.

How long before the image of the Irish family farm that is marketed passes out the reality of the family farm? It could well be argued that it has happened already.

At times I feel like scenic areas of the island are being exploited for their imagery to benefit those well away from these communities.

Farmers there end up taking on full- and part-time work, not necessarily to sustain their farms but to get money for the education of their families. Education is powerful but a consequence of it is that in many cases it leads to the next generation leaving the primary agricultural sector.

Longer term, this leads to the erosion of rural communities as the number of farms dwindles and with them local economies that benefit from them. The evolution of the Irish constituencies in European elections is an example of this.

There are plenty examples of disconnect.

A friend was looking to get a loan from a bank for a new car. He was told he was unlikely to get it because the official in bank headquarters looking at the application felt the car at three years old was too old.

Said official obviously had never been in any mart, supermarket or GAA venue car park in rural Ireland. Cars over three are getting more popular at these places.

Lack of understanding

Another example is visible in the terms and conditions of the current Knowledge Transfer scheme. Meetings are not permitted at weekends or public holidays and can only be held between 9am and 8pm. Given the amount of part-time farmers, surely a bit of common sense could have been allowed. These are only two illustrations of the lack of understanding within agriculture.

We have a lot of good within our industry but maybe there is an overuse of the word “sustainable” to paper over the dangers and realities involved in many farms.

Listening to those at farm level and understanding some of their basic concerns would help make farms a safer workplace.