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Monivea, Co Galway
“The day the dairy quota went in Ireland was the death knell for sucklers in Ireland and unless there’s some control on the dairy, this is their problem now. The Friesians, Angus, Herefords, Jerseys and all kinds of goats of calves are being fattened up in feedlots and ruining my livelihood.
“Good luck to the dairy men but I think the quotas should be regulated some way to stop this explosion that’s going on where farmers have 150 cows and going to 300.
“What’s it about like? Is it greed or what?”
Eyrecourt, Co Galway
“Maybe it’s time for a scrappage scheme for the suckler cow. There’s no room for the suckler cow, no respect for the west of Ireland in both the IFA and nationally. It’s a non-entity. Simple as that. Maybe if we got a good scheme, we’d get rid of them altogether. A lot will go next year when they’re out of the genomics scheme. Lorries won’t be able to drawn them fast enough.”
John Dillon Leitrim-Loughrea, Co Galway
“The carbon tax went through very handy in the Dáil but it’s going to cost farmers approximately €5m from May onwards when diesel goes up. The contractors have to pay for it and will transfer it back to the farmer and it’s well time to be fighting that. The sheep trade this year is a disaster.
“We can blame a lot of things but there are an awful lot of lambs coming in from the North and that’s a big problem. The factories are bringing them in and they’ll kill them first before they kill mine or any other ones.”
Corofin, Co Galway
“There were protests earlier in the year and we saw two more breakaway groups representing farmers. This has happened going back 20 years. Since then, five or six different associations are purporting to represent farmers. It’s quite obvious that the reason they were set up [is because they were] disillusioned with this association and feeling it’s not delivering for them.
“The silence was deafening the time of the protest. Our neighbours and farmers [were on the gates and] you hopped in fairly smart when it came to a head. You were all there for the photographs.”
Ballinafad, Belcarra, Co Mayo
“The beef sector, I don’t see a whole lot has improved since the protests have ended. I’d like to see an improvement there. The price is still not great. I’m not really happy with that to be honest.”
Kilkelly, Co Mayo
“I’d like to see something done about the price of store cattle. They’re a disaster now. It’s not viable to rear them at the minute.
“The price has to change. There’s nothing out of them. At the moment, there’s nothing out of farming. Only for the subsidies, we’d have nothing.”
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