It was Tom Short, the well-known tillage farmer from Ashford in Co Wicklow, who summed it up at the Tirlán annual general meeting held on Wednesday of last week.
He stated the simple fact that at present world prices, Irish tillage farming is unviable.
Competitiveness may be the Brussels buzzword for European agriculture at the moment. Certainly the term has replaced the Green Deal but not much else had changed.
Markets have been left to their own devices inside the existing set of rules.
As British and EU cattle and sheep numbers have fallen, prices have risen. US beef based on hormones has been banned from EU markets and up to now also from the British market.
The era of the €8/kg price has arrived driven by scarcity, confident consumers and the exclusion of perceived (or real) inferior products from our market.
On the dairy front, the inexorable steady 1–1.5% increase in world demand continues and prices have recovered well over the last 12 months.
On the tillage side, appropriate technology that has been available to Europe’s competitors for almost 20 years is making a real difference to productivity and efficiency. The price of maize and soya from the Americas, both produced with the aid of GM technology and with the aid of agri-chemicals banned in Europe, is setting the price for Europe’s cereals.
On a recent visit to Brussels, I was horrified to be told that it looks as if even the “within species” gene editing technology is likely to take 10 years before it is available to EU producers.
European and, more to the point, Irish grain growers are uniquely exposed to world events and to world prices.
Over the last fortnight prices on the world price setting exchange in Chicago have dropped over 10% in dollar terms and the dollar itself has weakened by 10%.
Whether it’s because of tariffs by China on US imports that are now looking for a new home, or the promise of large maize and soya crops in Brazil and Argentina produced with the aid of inputs and technology not available in Europe is not the issue.
Europe and Ireland need to reassure their farmers that as harvest approaches, they will not be left swinging.
We may urge greater tillage production and extol its environmental advantages and feed security attributes but its not surprising that in our area at least, so many tillage fields have solar farm application notices on their gates.
We are in an era of greater toleration of State aid. Minister Heydon will need to clarify his thoughts quickly on what Government attitude is likely to be taken to sustain a tillage future. We have already lost beet as Tom Short pointed out.
It was Tom Short, the well-known tillage farmer from Ashford in Co Wicklow, who summed it up at the Tirlán annual general meeting held on Wednesday of last week.
He stated the simple fact that at present world prices, Irish tillage farming is unviable.
Competitiveness may be the Brussels buzzword for European agriculture at the moment. Certainly the term has replaced the Green Deal but not much else had changed.
Markets have been left to their own devices inside the existing set of rules.
As British and EU cattle and sheep numbers have fallen, prices have risen. US beef based on hormones has been banned from EU markets and up to now also from the British market.
The era of the €8/kg price has arrived driven by scarcity, confident consumers and the exclusion of perceived (or real) inferior products from our market.
On the dairy front, the inexorable steady 1–1.5% increase in world demand continues and prices have recovered well over the last 12 months.
On the tillage side, appropriate technology that has been available to Europe’s competitors for almost 20 years is making a real difference to productivity and efficiency. The price of maize and soya from the Americas, both produced with the aid of GM technology and with the aid of agri-chemicals banned in Europe, is setting the price for Europe’s cereals.
On a recent visit to Brussels, I was horrified to be told that it looks as if even the “within species” gene editing technology is likely to take 10 years before it is available to EU producers.
European and, more to the point, Irish grain growers are uniquely exposed to world events and to world prices.
Over the last fortnight prices on the world price setting exchange in Chicago have dropped over 10% in dollar terms and the dollar itself has weakened by 10%.
Whether it’s because of tariffs by China on US imports that are now looking for a new home, or the promise of large maize and soya crops in Brazil and Argentina produced with the aid of inputs and technology not available in Europe is not the issue.
Europe and Ireland need to reassure their farmers that as harvest approaches, they will not be left swinging.
We may urge greater tillage production and extol its environmental advantages and feed security attributes but its not surprising that in our area at least, so many tillage fields have solar farm application notices on their gates.
We are in an era of greater toleration of State aid. Minister Heydon will need to clarify his thoughts quickly on what Government attitude is likely to be taken to sustain a tillage future. We have already lost beet as Tom Short pointed out.
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