The Food Vision Beef and Sheep Group has been told that sustaining Ireland’s agricultural sector requires succession pathways for new entrants who can drive it forward.
The group convened today for its second meeting and, commenting after it, Macra na Feirme president, John Keane said: “Young people want to go farming but policies heretofore have not been assessed in relation to generational renewal and the impacts that these policies have on providing young people with opportunities to enter the farming sector.
“In the context of sustainability, which is front and foremost in all discussion in relation to agriculture, it is important to remember that in order for agriculture to sustain we need new people entering the sector to carry it forward.”
The Food Vision Beef and Sheep Group was established earlier this year by Minister McConalogue with a remit to advance actions set out for the sectors in the Food Vision 2030 strategy, while contributing to meeting the targets set down for agriculture in the Climate Action Plan.
Chaired by Thia Hennessy, it is comprised of representatives from: a number of relevant farm organisations; the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine; Teagasc; Bord Bia; University College Dublin; Animal Health Ireland; and the Environmental Protection Agency.
At today’s meeting, the Macra na Feirme president took the opportunity to highlight the need to protect the future of farming for young people.
He said the largest number of farmers are in the beef and sheep sectors, accounting for in the region of 80,000 family farms.
“It is crucial that a succession pathway that works for young farmers and exiting older farmers is developed in the context of the report delivered by the group,” said Keane.
The Food Vision Beef and Sheep Group follows in the footsteps of the Food Vision Dairy Group, which published the final draft of its interim report at the end of May.
One of 17 recommendations of that report is to consider a voluntary dairy exit/reduction scheme.
Macra na Feirme has already raised concerns within the dairy group interim report in relation to generational renewal.
“The voluntary scheme proposed only promotes land locking and not generational renewal,” he said.
“Putting limits on the ability of land to produce fodder or support livestock production systems will not achieve generational renewal on Irish family farms,” said Keane.
“The beef and sheep group must support the need for more young people to enter farming with tangible measures that can also support the realising of our climate action plan targets.
“Assessing all proposals and policies on the impact that they have on attracting young people into farming is crucial given that currently less than 6% of farmers are under 35,” Keane said.