Through Macra’s participation in the European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA) and with the support of IFAC Accountants, Macra’s partner for young farmers in Ireland and Europe, Macra/CEJA are represented on a number of the new EU civil dialogue groups. Last week, we profiled our representative on the beef meat sector forum. This week, we profile Ronan Byrne, who represents us on the forum on organic farming.

Ronan Byrne owns The Friendly Farmer, a diversified poultry farm and food business based in Athenry, Co Galway.

He began with a small farm, but moved the enterprise away from beef into a poultry enterprise and began to sell directly to the customer. He has been fortunate enough to return to the beef industry after seven years building his poultry enterprise.

His main focus has been on selling product directly to the customer from the farm. The civil dialogue group on organic farming’s main objective is to facilitate farmers and stakeholders to contribute to the European Commission’s proposed new legislation on organic farming and labelling, coming into effect in 2017.

Civil dialogue groups are a great way for stakeholders and people involved on the ground to give their feedback on proposed policies to the European Commission.