IFA president Joe Healy has called on Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed to urgently establish and convene a national tillage forum, including key industry stakeholders to devise an action plan to address the serious and deepening income crisis in the tillage farming sector.

Healy made his call in an address to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture last week. Healy said: “Without political intervention, Ireland’s tillage sector is in imminent danger of collapse, with major implications for the entire livestock sector and our world-renowned drinks industry. I am calling on the minister to immediately convene a national tillage forum of key stakeholders to devise an action plan to address the serious crisis in the sector.”

The IFA has identified the following issues as crucial to the survival of the tillage sector:

  • Recognition of the tillage crisis and the introduction of a specific aid package for the sector.
  • Development of an Irish grain certification scheme to maximise the use of native grain and proteins in Irish livestock rations in support of Irish growers and to ensure that harmful weed seeds such as blackgrass and sterile brome, etc, are not inadvertently imported into the country.
  • Abolition of tariffs and anti-dumping duties on fertiliser imports as fertilisers now account for 40% of variable production costs.
  • Review by the EU Competition Authority of the cost of plant protection products which are priced significantly lower to growers in other regions across the world.
  • Priority access to low-cost working capital similar to their EU counterparts.
  • Increased GLAS payments.
  • Increased funding to allow for the expansion of the protein crop area eligible to receive the full coupled payment.
  • Immediate rollout of the TAMS investment programme.
  • Reduction in the burden of compliance for greening.
  • The IFA president said that the Irish cereal sector is in danger of falling into terminal decline unless immediate and decisive action is taken to reverse the dramatic fall in incomes.