DEAR EDITOR,

Logging into agfood.ie, I see that from 2 September farmers will be required to use “two-factor authentication”, receiving a text message code in order to log in (editor’s note: text message code used instead of a farmer’s PAC code).

Has anyone in the Department considered the reality that much of rural Ireland has poor or non-existent mobile phone coverage?

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Many farmers will find themselves unable to access their own accounts without walking around the yard or even driving down the road to get a signal.

This is not progress – it is a barrier to farmers who rely on agfood.ie for viewing their basic payments and official correspondence.

A common sense alternative is urgently needed before many are effectively locked out of the system.