The IFA, led by president Tim Cullinan, met with European Financial Services Commissioner Mairead McGuinness, who, in response to council queries spoke about Mercosur, Farm to Fork and banking.

While the commissioner is responsible for a financial portfolio in the Commission, she has a long-established interest in agriculture through family involvement in farming and being a previous member of the agriculture committee in the European Parliament prior to becoming a commissioner.

In welcoming the Commissioner, the IFA president flagged the issues that members of the council would be raising, and while Commissioner McGuinness emphasised that her portfolio was in financial services, she did engage meaningfully on agricultural issues.

Some of the issues raised

Michael Biggins challenged the Commissioner about Irish farmers not having a level playing field and that the EU was affecting the freedom to farm.

Chair of the environment committee Paul O’Brien highlighted that the only impact assessment carried out on the EU Farm to Fork strategy was done by the USDA and it revealed how farmers would lose out by 16%.

Livestock chair Brendan Golden raised the issue of more imports into the EU with the market already supplied at 102%, while vice-president Brian Rushe asked how the Commission would ensure money is targeted at the most vulnerable sectors, an issue later flagged by Flor McCarthy when he colourfully described “EU supports draining away from our sector to those that are on fire”.

Stephen Arthur raised the issue of banking and how Irish farmers were paying excess of 6% interest on loans, while banks were getting the money at under 1%.

This theme was also pursued by Nigel Reneghan, who raised the issue of protecting farmers from vulture funds.

Horticulture chair Paul Brophy tabled the issue of supermarkets contract-pricing and Francie Gorman urged that the conflict in the EU between DG Agri and DG Trade be addressed.

Commissioner responses

With the wide range of topics raised and limited time available, the Commissioner addressed many of the issues in a general way, frequently referring back to her brief in the Commission.

However, she encouraged members to raise issues with MEPs and referred back to her work as an MEP on unfair trading practices in Parliament, accepting that is wasn’t enough but something to build on.

The Commissioner was defensive on Mercosur, highlighting that dairy and alcohol sales would benefit, but accepted that beef would lose out.

She also challenged the USDA impact assessment on Farm to Fork on being a one-sided analysis and pointed out that reduction in inputs would benefit farmers.

On banking, she pointed out that banking structures were very much on a national basis.

Given the short time available of just an hour and the breadth of issues raised, there was little in-depth debate.

The Commissioner welcomed the opportunity to hear from farmers first-hand on the issue of concern and assured the council members that their voices had been heard.