The Big Dealer: ‘National heritage’ status for mooing cattle in France

The mayor of a French rural village has made national headlines after calling for farm noises to be granted “national heritage” status.

A retired farmer himself, Bruno Dionis du Séjour wrote in his local council’s newsletter that crowing cocks, mooing cattle and braying donkeys should be protected from legal action as “mean courtroom gesticulations appear to be multiplying everywhere in France”.

According to the mayor, too many fines are imposed on livestock farmers and rural churches are forced to stop ringing their bells in the morning because of complaints by “selfish new residents, most often of urban extraction, who discover the countryside like a fool would discover that eggs don’t grow on trees”.

The Dealer hears former Macra president Seán Finan is running for re-election as vice-president of the European young farmer group, CEJA. The Roscommon man has held the job for the last two years and is hoping to do a second term in office. He is currently chief executive officer of the Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA).

There are at least seven candidates for four seats, perhaps more by the time nominations close on Friday.

However, with the UK young farmers no longer having a vote since they became associate members of CEJA, rather than full members, it is not clear how well the vote will go for Finan.

While peeling the spuds in the Fighting Cocks pub down in Carlow over the weekend, I got the lowdown on the Ploughing.

The National Ploughing Championships site is only down the road and can be seen marked out with pegs already from the main road.

So the story I heard is that finding water is a problem – four wells have been sunk and still no water can be found.

The other scarce commodity is the water of the 21st century – the internet.

Again, I’m led to believe it’s a struggle to get it powerful enough – no surprise there. However, I’ve full confidence both will be found come September come hell or high water.

The word on the ground is the Ploughing site is the biggest ever and given its proximity to the motorway, traffic shouldn’t be a problem.

While the Ornua board grapples with governance issues, the organisation’s boss John Jordan is set to address a farmers forum at the Moorepark open day on Wednesday 3 July. Ornua board members have been quiet in the last week after the announcement Aaron Forde is stepping aside as chair. The Dealer heard some whispers Forde had the votes around the table to stay on as chair if he so wished.

The Ornua boss will have plenty of questions to answer as another small milk contamination scare at Bandon butter made the airwaves last week. Bandon packs and markets Kerrygold butter under franchise from Ornua.

With questions around the risk to Kerrygold, independence of directors, and environmentalists shouting about Chinese exports expect plenty of sparks in this forum.

When is a good time to sell a piggery? Right about now really.

With reportedly over 40% of the sows in China gone with African swine fever, the pig market is on the rise. I hear Lismore-based consultant Tom Butler is charged with selling the Centenary Thurles piggery that operates near Burncourt in south Tipperary.

The integrated unit was finishing about 10,000 pigs per year.

The Thurles lads obviously see the piggery as non-core to the small north Tipp-based milk trader and want to move it on.

Most of the Thurles milk goes to Glanbia with a splash to Tipperary Co-op. The question is which of the pig empires south of Cahir will snap up the piggery?

In a letter seen by The Dealer, Department officials questioned a farmer’s BPS application because a new gravel roadway joining two gates had been built in the corner of a field. Fair enough.

Then the officials followed the path routinely travelled by the farmer’s jeep through the field on the satellite photos.

They declared the jeep’s tracks a roadway too and asked the farmer to knock 0.2ac off the application or face a penalty.

Moral of the story: if you’re driving the jeep or the quad across a field, make sure to take a different route each time.

I see the new Fine Gael MEP Maria Walsh will be joining Macra na Feirme as it takes part in this year’s Dublin Pride parade on 29 June.

Macra president Thomas Duffy says Macra is taking part to “send a clear message of openness to all LGBTQ+ young people inside and outside the organisation.”

But he also says rural Ireland can still become more open and inclusive on this front.

In a letter seen by The Dealer, Department officials questioned a farmer’s BPS application because a new gravel roadway joining two gates had been built in the corner of a field. Fair enough.

Then the officials followed the path routinely travelled by the farmer’s jeep through the field on the satellite photos.

They declared the jeep’s tracks a roadway too and asked the farmer to knock 0.2ac off the application or face a penalty.

Moral of the story: if you’re driving the jeep or the quad across a field, make sure to take a different route each time.