The recently elected Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) Donegal county chair, Joe Sweeney, has said that his main priorities in his new position centre around securing better and fairer prices for Donegal farmers in an Irish sheep industry that is “not sustainable”.
Speaking to Agriland, Sweeney said input prices are too high, and that Ireland’s sheep sector is becoming increasingly harder for farmers to stay in, with younger farmers steering clear from the sector as well as the wider agricultural industry.
“We’re going to lose a generation of farmers in this country because the young farmers, with this sort of way of working, are not going to come into farming,” he warned.
“If you look around the marts, they’re not there anyway.”
Sweeney, who was elected to the position of county chair last Tuesday (February 7), compared fertiliser prices between Ireland and England, saying that the price in England has come down since it peaked last year, but that here, it’s still at record-breaking high prices.
“Farmers bought fertiliser last year for €1,000/t. It hasn’t changed much, it has dropped by €100 maybe €150,” he said.
“The same fertiliser in England today, or France today, it was up on £1,000 last year and it’s £500 today. So, who is taking the profit? Not the farmer.”
Lobbying
Sweeney said that he will ensure the lobbying of ministers and TDs continues in his new position as Donegal IFA chair, but that farming organisations and different farming sectors must come together as “one voice” to make the message stronger.
He said the government must ensure “fair pay for the consumer and fair pay for the producer” in the face of food inflation, which he believes “has to come and there’s nothing we can do about it”.
“We have direct payments but the direct payments are not covering the cost of production. It’s helping, but it is still not covering the cost,” he said.
“The producer goes out and he spends the whole year producing a lamb from one end of the year to the other. It goes to the factory and is killed and the factory gets his money in so many days and then it’s gone to the supermarkets.
“The farmer is all year waiting for his piece and the factory makes more and faster. So we want to look at who’s taking the margins.”