The Government in the UK published a report on farmer levies and the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB). I’m left wondering why the Irish Government is not currently carrying out a similar exercise here – looking at organisations funded directly or indirectly by farmer levies.
The AHDB’s activities are split into the following areas: research; knowledge exchange; market development; export development; market intelligence; and communications. It’s funded by a statutory levy.
Meanwhile, [here in Ireland] prices for much of our top-quality farm produce are on the floor – again. We must look at every penny of cost inside our farm-gates, while levies cost Irish farmers millions of euros every year. Sometimes, we might not even realise that we’ve paid a levy, who it was paid to or what we got in return.
In any case, they represent a very valuable income stream for a handful of organisations – so much so, in fact, that some pay a ‘middle man’ to gather all the money up.
The UK Government’s report didn’t hold back. 900 people who gave their views during a consultation process didn’t hold back either.
‘Ballot-type approach’
In particular, one suggestion talked about a ballot-type approach, whereby the AHDB would have to consult levy payers in each sector – beef, lamb, pork, etc – and pitch a five-year programme of activity to them. Levy payers would then be able to vote on programmes.
Would we like to see Bord Bia, the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF), the Irish Farmer’s Association (IFA), the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) and the Irish Farm Films Producers Group (IFFPG) do the same for us in each sector…in return for our hard-earned cash?
I think the answer is yes.
Without a crystal ball, it would be impossible to predict the outcome of such a consultative process if it happened here but, if the UK exercise is anything to go by, those who are carrying the cost of these levies are not happy. They are frustrated by a lack of accountability and bloated bureaucracy.
The underlying theme is clear to me. He or she who ‘pays the piper’ gets no real input into how his or her cash is spent – on whom or on what.
We, as farmers, should place a high value on the levies we pay. Some levies don’t have a clear timeline; they recur – on-and-on and year-after-year.
‘Levies and targets’
If an investor was ploughing money into an organisation year-after-year, targets would be set down in stone. If not achieved, the flow of money would be cut. Some or all seats on the board would change; so too would some of the executive seats.
Some of them do important work, but some are perceived – rightly or wrongly – to be too close to other entities in the supply chain. Others are perceived to have priorities that are not as closely aligned to farmers’ as they should be. Ownership structures – or the lack of them – don’t allow individual farmers to take a share.
It’s time to shine a light on this whole area. It’s time to make these organisations more directly accountable to the ‘piper’. As the old saying goes, there are only two certainties in this life…
Farmer levies are not one of them.
From Micheál Rafferty, suckler and tillage farmer, Co. Monaghan