Minister of Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has been told that sheep farmer members of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) may protest at Leinster House if action is not taken to resolve income issues in the sector.
At the ICSA AGM last night (Thursday, February 9), at which the minister was in attendance, the association’s sheep chairperson Sean McNamara said that he and other members were prepared to protest at Leinster House.
“Sheep farmers are gone past the point of no return. We’re taking €1.20/kg to €1.30/kg less for our lambs than last year,” McNamara said.
“What’s sustainable about that for farm families?”
He compared the situation in Ireland to that on the continent, where sheep farmers are receiving much stronger prices for their lambs.
“I want a package put together for sheep farmers or else we’re going to have no next generation. We’ve already lost a generation of sheep farmers and we’re going to lose another one. Unless you get a package together for sheep farmers to keep them in it they’re just going to go to the wall,” McNamara added.
The ICSA says that sheep farmers need funding of €50 million in addition to Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) support in order to deliver a payment of €35/ewe for sheep farmers.
The organisation is also calling for a package of exceptional aid for sheep farmers at a level of €20/head, up to a maximum of five hundred lambs.
The ICSA sheep chairperson warned the minister that farmers may take to the streets if the income situation is not addressed.
“If you’re not prepared to take action within the next fortnight, and I mean the next fortnight, this day two weeks, I will see you outside the Dáil with a good bundle of farmers, and we will face the government,” McNamara said.
He added that sheep farmers he had spoken to in Minister McConalogue’s constituency of Donegal are “very disillusioned with the sheep industry at the moment”.
The minister confirmed during the meeting that the Food Vision Beef and Sheep group would be convened to examine the current situation in prices for sheep farmers.
He told ICSA members: “I know the sheep sector is currently under pressure with prices not where any of us want them to be. I have no control over the market but I fully recognise the pressures that are there.
He said that his officials would shortly be in touch with farm organisations to set up a date and location for the meeting.
“I believe in the short, medium and long-term success of the sheep sector. I want there to be a viable future for those currently farming sheep as well as for the next generation,” the minister added.
Responding directly to McNamara, Minister McConalogue said that a reduction in demand for sheepmeat from China is a significant cause of the fall-off in prices.
“It’s important that we do bring everyone together and try and plot our way through this. It’s really important from a department point of view, a Bord Bia point of view, and an industry point of view that we work together to see how we can try and maximise the return from the market,” he remarked.
“I will be pulling [the Food Vision group] and those key stakeholders together, which will be part of trying to plot a way forward and very closely assessing and looking at the situation at the moment and monitoring it very closely,” Minister McConalogue added.