A group representing every section of the tillage sector has called on Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed to reconvene the tillage forum.

The group want the forum to draw up an immediate action plan to save the industry, and to update its members in regard to progress made on the ideas put forward at the last meeting. The group said the crisis in the tillage sector “has continued to deepen” since the forum last met in February, with farmers and other stakeholders “now fearing for their future”.

The group includes Donal Fitzgerald of Goldcrop Ireland, Pat Ryan of Liffey Mills, agricultural consultant Pat Minnock, Michael Hoey of Country Crest, Cork tillage farmer Jim O’Regan, and Irish Farmers Journal tillage editor Andy Doyle. Both Hoey and O’Regan are also members of Beet Ireland. All the above bar Doyle are members of the forum.

Among the issues the group wants to see on the agenda are the revitalisation of Oakpark to make it a centre of excellence for tillage farmers on a par with Moorepark’s importance to the dairy sector. Building the inclusion of volumes of domestic grain in the feed sector has been identified as a key target. Similarly, increasing inclusion of Irish grain in the distilling sector is cited as a goal. In Scotland, feed wheat is replacing imported maize as an ingredient of the whisky distilling industry.

The development of domestic protein crops, for which there is an emerging demand, particularly for non-GM proteins, is a priority.

One described the crisis fund for the 2016 harvest losses, which dominated the previous meeting of the forum as “while welcome, only filling a pothole, when the tillage sector needs a new road to viability”. The focus has to be on restoring profitability for tillage farmers year-to-year, or the whole sector falls”. One immediate measure the group is calling for is that a proportion of the new low-interest loans be ring-fenced for tillage farmers, with an appropriate repayment period of up to five years.