Grassland farmers are ‘in limbo’ without an announcement of supports from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), the Irish Creamery and Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has said.
The organisation is calling for clarity on how the department will support them in growing sufficient grass and silage this year, in the face of rising fertiliser and energy costs.
It comes as the association’s president Pat McCormack, said it has been a month since an emergency meeting was held on March 9, to discuss food security and concerns around growing sufficient feed and fodder for 2022.
A number of organisations that attended the meeting raised their concerns, including the ICMSA. While a tillage support scheme has been put in place since, no announcement has been forthcoming on supporting grassland farmers as of yet.
McCormack said these farmers need to know how they will be helped as they face more and more challenges:
“We will require direct action on, particularly, fertiliser prices, but also energy costs, including green diesel, and feed costs.
“The minister has received funding from the EU which can be topped up, and it is about time that he stated his position on the supports he intends to introduce for the single most important crop in Irish agriculture.”
McCormack said the minister created an expectation that measures would be introduced when he called the meeting, but 100,000 grassland farmers are still waiting.
“Grassland farmers have got no support to date apart from a multi-species sward scheme that had already been announced. I have to be blunt, anyone suggesting that the scheme is an appropriate response is not living in the real world,” McCormack said.
The ICMSA stated that the tax income from the agricultural sector between excise and VAT has increased considerably in 2022, and is calling for this additional income to be redeployed to support farmers as they face “unprecedented times”.
“We either support farmers now or have a potentially bigger problem in the autumn. It really is as blunt as that,” McCormack said.
The ICMSA president has asked Minister McConalogue for a clear indication that the supports for grassland farmers that he alluded to at the meeting will be delivered on.
“The year is moving on and farmers need to make decisions. The minister must state his position on the supports he has already signalled and that needs to happen immediately,” McCormack concluded.