Issues affecting the mushroom and wider horticulture sector were to the fore in a recent meeting between Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O’Brien and the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) earlier this week.
IFA president Tim Cullinan met Minister O’Brien to discuss a range of issues impacting mushroom growers and the nursery stock sector.
The delegation, that met in north Dublin, included members of the IFA Mushroom and Nursery stock committees. Commenting following the meeting, Cullinan said:
“Due to Bord na Mona’s shock decision to end the harvesting of horticulture peat with immediate effect last December and a restriction on harvesting peat from areas over 30ha, many businesses in the nursery stock sector in particular are struggling to source sufficient peat supplies.”
Both the mushroom and nursery stock sectors are very dependent on horticulture grade peat as there isn’t a viable alternative, the president stressed.
“We called on the minister to introduce measures to ensure the resumption of the harvesting of horticultural peat immediately,” he said.
‘It’s very contradictory and hypocritical of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Action to recommend the expansion of the horticulture sector to avail of opportunities for import substitution and farm diversification, while the native raw material is being reduced,” he added.
The delegation also raised the issue of carbon leakage by importing peat from other countries.
“Producers will either have to close their business or import peat, which would add extra cost to their business. In the current market environment, it would be impossible to retrieve these costs from the market.
“This would also have adverse knock-on effects for the tillage, poultry and forestry sectors, resulting in a considerable blow to the rural economy,” the president stressed.
According to the IFA, the Irish horticulture sector continues to experience severe labour shortages – with a dearth of skilled, semi-skilled and manual labour for the sector.
The mushroom sector, in particular, is struggling to recruit suitable workers for harvesting. This is having a serious effect on the efficiencies of businesses and subsequent viability of the sector.
According to an “Irish Mushroom Industry Labour Survey” conducted by Teagasc, one of the main findings is 1,195 new hires are required on mushroom farms in 2021.
The horticulture sector has participated in Help2Harvest initiatives coordinated by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection both last year and this April, 2021, which sought to attract local workers into the horticulture sector.
Unfortunately, there has been little uptake of vacancies from the local workforce, the IFA says.
In order to alleviate the labour crisis in the horticulture sector, the reopening of the successful pilot General Employment Permit Scheme is required, the organisation has stressed.