The AGM of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), which took place yesterday (Friday, December 3), was told that there is an onus on the general media to establish the “credentials of those purporting to speak on how farming must change”.

The association’s president Pat McCormack told the AGM that the “lack of real knowledge on display in matters concerning farming and the environment in the general media is quite staggering”.

This state of affairs, he argued, would “not be tolerated on any other subject”.

“Given the enormity of what is at stake, farmers – and the wider rural communities in which they live and work – are entitled to hold the general media to a reasonable standard.

“Time and again, vaguely defined ‘environmental activists’ are given airtime on both State and commercial broadcasters to thrash farmers and by extension wider rural communities without ever having to demonstrate any working knowledge of farming or food production”,” McCormack claimed.

“Having debated many of these activists for years, it is my firm conviction that most wouldn’t know a heifer from a Hoover,” he remarked.

The ICMSA president also said that there were “very legitimate questions” around the funding of “several environmental NGOs [non-government organisations]”.

He argued that it is “in everyone’s interest” that the NGOs concerned reveal the full source of their funding.

Specifically, McCormack said these groups should reveal funding coming from any arm of the state; as well as any funding that originated in corporations involved in the manufacture of “so-called ‘synthetic’ meats and milk”.

The AGM was joined yesterday by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue, who, in a wide-ranging speech, expressed concern over the future of calf exports.

The minister’s comments come after a vote in a European Parliament committee this week which, if it becomes EU policy, will have far-reaching consequences.

“I’m not saying the writing is on the wall and I will continue to be a real advocate for live exports, but I am saying that this is a real hot topic and a massive challenge, and one we have to be very alert to,” he said.

“Anyone who thinks we will have exports of unweaned calves forever is sorely mistaken. There is no room for complacency,” the minister added.