Over 100 Macra members are gearing up to take to the roads of Kildare and Dublin next week. On Tuesday evening, Macra will march from Athy through the night to Dublin.

They will deliver their proposals, aimed at solving the challenges facing the rural youth, to Government on Wednesday.

Joanne Cushen from Kilkenny is from a mixed farm and farms in partnership with her mother. She will be walking to ensure that rural Ireland will be there in the future.

“My grandfather marched in the 1960s to ensure that incomes would be viable in rural Ireland. Now we’re marching to ensure rural Ireland survives. We need action now,” she said.

Helena Coughlan is farming dairy and beef in Cork, in partnership with her parents.

“Placing quotas on grant aid to improve our holdings and make them viable in the long-term is short-sighted in the extreme,” she told the Irish Farmers Journal.

Roscommon’s Diarmuid Murray is milking cows and rearing calves to beef with his father and uncle.

He said the Government is “limiting young farmer ambition” and won’t grant aid to young farmers if they go over a certain number of cows. “No other industry would stand for that,” he said.