Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue has highlighted the importance of ensuring that farms are “prepared for a potential seven-month winter”.
Addressing the issue of slurry storage during a debate on agriculture in the Seanad, the minister stressed the importance of ensuring “we are prepared for the exceptional” which, he said, is “becoming more regular”.
This particular year, in all parts of the country, stock were being fed from September and now in mid April animals are still being housed, nearly seven months later due to an “exceptionally long winter”, he said.
“Right across the sector, we need to make sure that, at pretty much any farm, you are prepared for a potential seven-month winter,” Minister McConalogue told senators yesterday (Tuesday, April 16).
“We have to make sure that we are prepared for that in any scenario. Ideally, we would have a four or five-months’ winter, not seven months, but everybody has to be prepared.”
In 2023 there was a “potential drought situation”, where, in some cases, animals were being fed during the summer, Minister McConalogue told senators.
Highlighting the importance of “becoming robust and resilient”, the minister said “thankfully this time, although we had a seven-month winter, we did have enough fodder in the country”.
Farms
“We hope the weather will change and will pick up on the positive side because growth has been good. Unlike previous challenges where there have been fodder shortages, there is grass in most fields,” he said.
There is a better supply of grass than there would have been, for example, in 2018 or 2013 when there was “not a blade of grass” on the ground until mid May because it was so cold, the minister said.
“If the ground does dry out – and that is not in our gift – there will be more of a supply for stock once the fields are trafficable. In the meantime, it is our job to support farmers through this,” he said.
Met Éireann expects lower than average rainfall amounts to lead to improved field trafficability this week. Most well drained soils will become trafficable with some improvement in moderate and poorly drained soils, too.
High pressure in the Atlantic is forecast to come in over the country by the weekend. Conditions will improve day on day as high pressure begins to influence conditions, according to the national forecaster.
The minister said the government will continue to monitor the situation and work closely with the National Fodder and Food Security Committee (NFFSC) and all stakeholders to help farmers over the weeks and the months ahead.
Farm safety
The minister said that if the weather goes in the direction in which the forecast is indicating in the days ahead, it will become a “really busy time on farms across the country”.
“It will become a different type of pressure – from the frustration that has been there over the last number of weeks waiting and wondering what is going to happen, it will now become the pressure and the stress of trying to catch up.
“Of trying to get crops in the ground, and also trying to catch up in relation to fertilising, silage, all of the work that has been on hold, and that’s a different type of pressure,” Minister McConalogue said.
In that scenario, the minister stressed the importance of farm safety. “Farming is the most dangerous profession in the country. Everybody needs to be cognisant of that over the next number of weeks,” he added.