The Agricultural Consultants’ Association (ACA) is calling on the government to provide core funding in recognition of the services the organisation provides to Irish agriculture.
The request is the key driver within ACA’s Budget 2025 submission.
Organisation president, Michael Ryan, told Agriland: “ACA members are working with 55,000 farming businesses at the present time, delivering a wide range of services.
“And, yes, we do receive government funding for specific projects, the roll-out of the organic farming programmes being one of them. But, for the most part, ACA is funded by its own members.
“There is a huge job of work to be done where water quality is concerned and the implementation of the schemes that government has developed to address this issue.
“Individual farmers will be expected to participate in the scheme. But the significant input of ACA consultants will be required in many cases to make all of this work,” he added.
The president said that the ACA is fully recognised by the government as an official stakeholder organisation.
ACA on organic farming and harvest
Ryan went on to confirm that growth of organic farming within Irish agriculture.
“A combination of changing consumer habits and European Union support is driving this process,” he commented.
“Ireland’s organic sector is starting from a very low baseline, in terms of land base; probably in the region of 1%. And it will probably plateau out at around 7%.
“The various livestock sectors have seen most of the growth in organic output up to this point. The one exception here is dairy, which has yet to catch up. The same principle holds, where crops are concerned.”
The ACA is hosting a number of organic farming events throughout the months of August and September.
Meanwhile, Michael Ryan is based in west Wicklow. He confirmed that tillage farmers in that part of the world are about 10 days behind with the 2024 harvest.
“Grain quality has been good up to this point and spring crops are showing significant promise,” he said.
“Farmers are concentrating on getting grain cut and catching up with straw whenever the weather permits.”
A north/south split has opened up in terms of the progress made by tillage farmers in combining crops over the last week.
Farms in the north-west have received up to 149mm of rain since the beginning of this month. The end result is that Harvest 2024 has ground to an absolute halt in places like east Donegal.