Hogan, who farms 400 sows in Anglesboro, Co Limerick with his son Niall,has been a member of the IFA pig committee for four years. He was elected to lead the country’s 300 commercial farmers at a meeting in the Red Cow Hotel in west Dublin.

"My focus has been, and will be, on the bottom line for pig farmers, feed and pig prices," Hogan said, thanking O'Flaherty for his work.

It was announced in November that O’Flaherty would be finishing up as chair of the IFA pig and pigmeat committee before the end of the year.

O’Flaherty has not enjoyed a smooth period in recent times as IFA pig chair. He survived a failed attempt at his leadership and also saw half of his committee stage a walkout in protest of his leadership at another meeting.

Pig prices have been in recovery after 18 months of record low farmer returns.

New committee

The IFA has been holding elections to the pig committee in recent weeks. There are a number of new names on the committee now. In the south region, Shane McAuliffe and Maurice O’Brien have joined, in the mid region Michael O’Shea Jr, William Murphy, Kevin Reardon and Colm Ryan have joined, while in the northern region Luke Bogue and Michael Caffrey have come joined the committee.

Michael O’Shea Jr is the brother of former IFA pig executive Deirdre O’Shea, who has gone on to be the new boss of Agri Aware. Colm Ryan has joined the committee in the mid region but previously was on the committee as a rep from the southern region.

Nitrates

The committee is also expected to publish its stance on an impending deadline on the nitrates derogation.

The end of the transitional arrangements for phosphorus, under the Nitrates Programme, will mean that pig and poultry farmers will need access to more land on which to spread these manures next year.

The transitional arrangements, which have been in place for the last decade, allow animal manures to be applied at higher than the official crop requirement levels.

Once the changes come into effect from 1 January, it will no longer be legal to apply more than the total recommended P rate for any use. The change may also affect other livestock farms that have high soil phosphorus levels at index four, as they will no longer be able to apply organic phosphorus.

Teagasc has estimated that pig farmers will need 30% to 50% more land for slurry, while poultry farmers will require 12% to 25% more.

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