Farmers are looking for consultation, communication and respect from the Department of Agriculture and the Minister for Agriculture, Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) deputy president Alice Doyle has said.

“Surely anyone is entitled to that much,” she said.

This Thursday night, she will chair what will surely be the biggest farmer meeting of the year so far, as the IFA hosts a discussion on the policy threat to farming on peat soils in the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone.

It’s a hot topic, with three separate issues all closing in on farmers working the near quarter of a million hectares of well-drained organic soils.

There have been long-standing fears over the Nature Restoration Law and the potential need to rewet land.

“The IFA fought hard for farmers on the Nature Restoration Law,” says Doyle. “It isn’t that farmers are opposed to nature restoration, far from it, but it was always about finding a balance.”

The former Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said that all the commitments around rewetting for 2030 could be achieved on State-owned lands.

Restrictions

Meanwhile, the debate around the Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) 2 rules has been ongoing.

These could impose restrictions around ploughing, drainage and other common farming practices on any land parcel where more than 50% is comprised of peatland. As many as 32,000 farmers could be affected by this.

“I sat in front of Christophe Hansen, the Agriculture Commissioner, in the Farm Centre [at the IFA AGM]. I sat in front of him in Brussels and I sat in front of the two commissioners, from trade and from environment, and what was the phrase that kept coming across? 'We're going to be transparent, we are going to engage'. And that’s what needs to happen, that’s what we are calling for tonight, particularly on GAEC 2.”

Water table

The third issue relates to a proposal under the Climate Action Plan to raise the water table on as much as 80,000ha of farmed peatland. This was the subject of a meeting reported by the Irish Farmers Journal that farmers were not invited to. "Climate Action Plan measures are set by the Irish Government, not Brussels," says Doyle, "so we know exactly who is behind this."

Again, she is calling for politicians to live up to their words.

"At the Curragh meeting last October, then-Taoiseach Simon Harris and then-Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue swore they would consult with us, keep us in the loop and would have our backs,” she says.

“All through the general election campaign, both they, and indeed politicians of every hue, repeated the same message of support. Now we hear of secret meetings and between the Nature Restoration Law, GAEC 2 and the Climate Action Plan, farmers are confused and concerned.”

What the IFA wants is for all the various regulations to be fair to farmers and to add up to something coherent, so the different targets and regimes are not in competition with each other.

"Trust has to be earned," says Doyle. "Farmers' trust in Government and in the Commission has been damaged and will have to be rebuilt."

The meeting kicks off at 8pm.