The newly elected Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) Connacht regional chair, Brendan Golden from Killala, Co. Mayo has said that all the focus at the moment on “climate and the environment” has left farmers feeling “battered and bruised”.
Golden, who was the former IFA Livestock chair, told Agriland that he believes that the “priority” is for the EU and the Irish government to start supporting food production more.
After COP28 in Dubai, Golden said he was “glad” to hear that there was not “as much of a focus on the livestock production as [there was before], and [that] there has to be a recognition that food is needed and food security is important”.
“There’s a huge job of work to be done… we have concerns on all sections of farming,” he added.
Another priority according to Golden is that there are “sustainable family farms going forward; if we don’t have young people coming in, that have vibrant communities, that’s going to be a big loss to the rural areas in Connacht”.
According to regional chair, “the suckler cow and the ewe are the backbone of a lot of the rural communities in the west”.
Economic sustainability
Golden added that the “biggest challenge that faces farmers in Connacht and indeed in any other part of the country is their viability”.
“The key challenge is economic sustainability and with economic sustainability you get environmental sustainability and social sustainability… we have to have[a] sustainable service system and that is the key challenge going forward,” he said.
“Farmers [need] to have an income and we are hugely conscious of meeting our environmental and climate challenge, but I think it’s important that we are supported to produce the food that we produce as well.”
When discussing what he is looking forward to about the new role he said: “I would look forward to engaging with people.
“I like to engage with farmers and talk with farmers and listen to their concerns… [farmers ring] me up and you know they may have a problem… and you can talk through it and oftentimes a problem shared can be a problem solved, or it lessens the burden,” he added.
“Hopefully we’ll see that I made a difference and that I worked with the people in the region to make that difference… that’s the big hope I would have for the next four years.”
Connacht chair
The new Connacht regional chair discussed the recent nitrates derogation stating: “I’m hugely conscious of the importance of holding onto that derogation
“Its critical that we hold onto the derogation… because land availability is [a] critical thing for a lot of farmers and again it would hit the smaller dairy farmers even harder because a lot of those are on a smaller basis and would hinge to be stocked that little bit higher, and they’re feeling very hard done by.
Golden also said that small family dairy farm viability could be undermined because if they have to look to lease more land to meet nitrates requirements, they will be competing with bigger operations which can afford to pay more for land.
“Whether that’s bigger farms or bigger dairy farms or tillage farms… if we don’t have viable farms and land for sale, a smaller farmer that’s in a vulnerable operation is not going to be able to compete with a bigger operation and he’s going to be squeezed out,” he concluded.