Bord Bia’s Farmer Forum is an interesting development. The Irish Food Board is inviting applications from farmers to become part of a 100-strong forum.
Bord Bia will select the participants from the applications. It’s understood that that is all 100 members of the forum – the farm organisations will have no nominating powers.
All the applicants have to be members of a Bord Bia Quality Assurance scheme, which is understandable.
There’s a strong echo of the citizens’ assembly of the whole format with 100 people gathering periodically, once every season, for a full day session. Like that forum, the members will be chosen to fully represent the demographic profile of farming, by farm enterprise, age and gender.
It remains to be seen if it follows the same mode of operation, with a range of expert views on an issue before a series of votes on a range of proposals, remains to be seen. We do know that a committee of a dozen or more people will structure the sessions.
Presumably, farmers will be included in that group too. The forum is open to accusations of decision making by focus group, but 100 people form a cohort of not much more than 100,000 is significant representation.
Will this new forum improve working relations between farmers and Bord Bia? There already are farmer representatives on the board, the IFA and ICMSA presidents of the day.
The meat and livestock subsidiary board contains the IFA representatives of the livestock, sheep, and poultry sectors alongside the ICMSA’s livestock chair – that’s nearly half that board. The IFA and ICMSA have representation on the dairy and quality assurance subsidiary boards. IFA’s potato chair sits on the horticulture subsidiary board.
So there’s no shortage of farmer voices at representational level within Bord Bia’s current structure. Rather, the complaint being made during the weeks of the protest, and indeed, a common refrain at farmer meetings for many years, is that those farmer voices are not being heeded when it comes to enacting policy decisions. The decision not to award some places to the IFA, ICMSA, ICSA, INHFA and Macra will annoy some.
Smaller groups that currently are not formally recognised, such as the Irish Rural Association, the Irish Beef and Lamb Association, and most particularly Beef Plan, will be even more disappointed not to have been given nominating rights, but will surely push their members to apply.
In parallel to this, the governance review into the Bord Bia board is ongoing. Having now missed the original 30 April target date for publication, it is likely to be late June before the report compiled by Governance Ireland is completed. By then, the focus will have moved toward the Irish presidency and EU budget and CAP negotiations.
What will happen if Martin Heydon’s confidence that the report will give chair Larry Murrin a clean bill of health is well-founded? At the least, the IFA can point to this Farmer Forum as a clear sign of progress on better representation and engagement with farmers. But will it be enough?
Bord Bia’s Farmer Forum is an interesting development. The Irish Food Board is inviting applications from farmers to become part of a 100-strong forum.
Bord Bia will select the participants from the applications. It’s understood that that is all 100 members of the forum – the farm organisations will have no nominating powers.
All the applicants have to be members of a Bord Bia Quality Assurance scheme, which is understandable.
There’s a strong echo of the citizens’ assembly of the whole format with 100 people gathering periodically, once every season, for a full day session. Like that forum, the members will be chosen to fully represent the demographic profile of farming, by farm enterprise, age and gender.
It remains to be seen if it follows the same mode of operation, with a range of expert views on an issue before a series of votes on a range of proposals, remains to be seen. We do know that a committee of a dozen or more people will structure the sessions.
Presumably, farmers will be included in that group too. The forum is open to accusations of decision making by focus group, but 100 people form a cohort of not much more than 100,000 is significant representation.
Will this new forum improve working relations between farmers and Bord Bia? There already are farmer representatives on the board, the IFA and ICMSA presidents of the day.
The meat and livestock subsidiary board contains the IFA representatives of the livestock, sheep, and poultry sectors alongside the ICMSA’s livestock chair – that’s nearly half that board. The IFA and ICMSA have representation on the dairy and quality assurance subsidiary boards. IFA’s potato chair sits on the horticulture subsidiary board.
So there’s no shortage of farmer voices at representational level within Bord Bia’s current structure. Rather, the complaint being made during the weeks of the protest, and indeed, a common refrain at farmer meetings for many years, is that those farmer voices are not being heeded when it comes to enacting policy decisions. The decision not to award some places to the IFA, ICMSA, ICSA, INHFA and Macra will annoy some.
Smaller groups that currently are not formally recognised, such as the Irish Rural Association, the Irish Beef and Lamb Association, and most particularly Beef Plan, will be even more disappointed not to have been given nominating rights, but will surely push their members to apply.
In parallel to this, the governance review into the Bord Bia board is ongoing. Having now missed the original 30 April target date for publication, it is likely to be late June before the report compiled by Governance Ireland is completed. By then, the focus will have moved toward the Irish presidency and EU budget and CAP negotiations.
What will happen if Martin Heydon’s confidence that the report will give chair Larry Murrin a clean bill of health is well-founded? At the least, the IFA can point to this Farmer Forum as a clear sign of progress on better representation and engagement with farmers. But will it be enough?
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