The IFA hustings officially begin on Monday night in Macroom for the two presidential and two deputy presidential candidates. It’s the beginning of a gruelling four-week tour of the country that will feature no less than 18 debates in each contest.

For Francie Gorman and Martin Stapleton, the challenge will be to put their own stamp on the contest.

However, I’m hearing a nineteenth unofficial hustings is taking place tonight, Thursday 28 September. Longford was bypassed in the schedule, so both candidates have been invited to a meeting of the county’s branch and commodity officers in Edgeworthstown. Unsurprisingly, both have accepted.

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Gorman, the current south Leinster regional chair is seen as someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, who can work well in a crowd of farmers.

The challenge may be to convince farmers that he can articulate a coherent position on behalf of farmers in the national media. It’s an arduous task for anyone to take on, across the vast and complex web of issues facing farming.

For Stapleton, the current national treasurer, the challenge may be to come across as having the hard edge farmers want. The calm and analytical style he has exhibited to date was ideally suited to the farm business chair, during the worst washout of the credit crisis that swamped thousands of farms over the last 15 years. Is it what farmers want to embody them in the public mind over the next four years? And if it isn’t, can he pivot to show the requisite fire and flint?

For both men, there is the need to balance being accountable, as members of the national officers committee, for current and recent IFA campaigns, with showing they can plot a different and better course.

Then there are the sectoral differences; Stapleton, a Munster dairy farmer; Gorman, a Leinster suckler, sheep and tillage farmer.

Conventional wisdom is that dairy farmers are better at turning out and voting, so Gorman will probably need a high turnout – there are 72,000 IFA members, and only 17,000 dairy farms in the country.

What effect will the new postal vote option have on turnout? And with branch votes partially bypassed, how will the canvas proceed?

Previously, once a branch vote was completed, it could be chalked off the list. Now, every branch is live until the postal voting deadline of the day before the 12 December count. The canvas will be chaotic to organise. There is a sense that the next president will have to grasp this nettle fairly firmly. And it will sting.