The Independent Farmers Organisation of Ireland has said that it will not support a government proposal asking farmers to plant extra crops.
The comments come ahead of a meeting this evening (Tuesday, March 8) between Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue and seven farming organisations.
During the meeting, the minister will outline a plan to ask farmers to grow more crops. This is in response to food security concerns as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is also establishing a “rapid response team” to “actively monitor” events as they unfold.
The Independent Farmers group said it was disappointing, but not surprising, that it was not invited to this evening’s meeting.
It claimed that Minister McConalogue and the department “don’t want to hear an honest assessment of the state of farming”. It added that the proposal was “ill-conceived and impractical”.
Independent Farmers
The group believes that the government has ignored farmers pleas for support to offset escalating input costs and to cut carbon taxes.
It also said that the government had failed to deal with issues in the beef industry and had not given farmers credits for carbon sequestration.
Independent Farmers claimed that farmers had been “unfairly vilified” for “overstated methane emissions from livestock”.
The group said that the government now wants farmers who have been “blackguarded for years” to turn their enterprises upside down and plant cereals “in the national interest”.
“We in Independent Farmers are very annoyed at the despicable conduct of this Irish government over recent years towards Irish farmers.
“Considering this, we cannot see how any farmer representative organisation, or any Irish farmer would cooperate in any way with the government on this. We certainly won’t.
“The minister and his department will reap what they have sown over recent years,” the group stated.