“Huge frustration” was expressed by those who attended a public meeting in Cootehill this week about the lack of resolve among government to tackle the issues facing farm families and rural communities, according to MEP Chris MacManus.
The Midlands Northwest MEP hosted the meeting, which was held in the Errigal Hotel, alongside Sinn Féin TDs Matt Carthy and Pauline Tully, as well as president of the Irish Natural Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) Vincent Roddy and Ulster/north Leinster chair of the Irish Farmers’ Association Frank Brady.
MacManus stated that many concerns were raised by those in attendance, and anger at the interference of foreign investment funds in rural development and Irish forestry, food security, the mandatory rewetting of agricultural peatlands and the lack of support for family farms.
“Farm families are suffering from increasing input costs, generational loss and depreciation of CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) payments due to inflation, whilst having to do more for less in general.
“Due to the actions by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens, generations of farmers are now also being locked out of forestry whilst being forced to compete for rural land thanks to foreign investments funds like Gresham House,” he said.
The MEP said that alongside these challenges, input costs have risen by more than 34% over the past year, and farmers now find themselves “paying 40% more for fertiliser than other EU countries due to corporate greed”.
According to MacManus “the combined impacts of all of this has taken its toll”, and there is now “a collapse” in the number of young people entering the agricultural industry.
“The evidence is telling. The Irish government needs to address the lack of generational renewal.
“[If it doesn’t] the future of the Irish family farming model will go the way of the US, where once thriving rural communities are gone, replaced instead by factory farms that can be harmful to people, the soil, water, and air,” he said.
According to MacManus, the meeting was “very productive” and a number of proposals were put forward which they “will be taking on board and which will inform [their] work as [they] seek to tackle the issues” facing these farm families and communities.
“I will be continuing to fight for greater supports for Irish agriculture; the top-down approach imposed on rural Ireland by Brussels and Dublin does not work,” he concluded.