Following the release of the Teagasc National Farm Survey 2020 yesterday (Monday, July 19), the results have been met with concern by one Irish MEP.
Sinn Féin MEP Chris MacManus said yesterday evening that the survey “exposes worrying trends”.
“This new data shows that Irish agriculture suffers from two great divisions – geographical and sectoral – with one influencing the other,” MacManus argued.
“Firstly, even though Ireland is among the world’s most sustainable beef producers because of our grass-fed model, the market is not delivering enough returns for beef farmers.
“The average income on cattle rearing farms in 2020 was €9,037 and on other types of cattle farms it was €14,813. This is a fraction of what farmers are taking home in the dairy sector, which stands at €74,236,” the Midlands North-West MEP noted.
He continued: “It is said you cannot read too much into headline figures and this is true to an extent. Dairy farms carry more debt and have more unpaid labour units, with less off-farm employment.
“However, the figures give us an indication that the beef sector is struggling. Their dependence on CAP [common agricultural policy] payments to ensure some profit is made is around four times higher than in the dairy sector, where CAP payments make up less than one-third of their income,” MacManus outlined.
The MEP argued that the unattractiveness of the beef sector to younger farmers means they are taking on large levels of debt to convert to dairy, though this wasn’t an option for all, due to land quality and fragmentation.
“If we are to protect our reputation as producing the highest quality beef in the world, we need to protect the suckler cow portion and ideally nurture it,” he argued.
While MacManus acknowledged the prices have improved for beef farmers generally this year, he noted that we would have to wait until next year’s National Farm Survey to see what effect it has had on incomes.
“In the meantime, we need to look at a variety of ways to ensure as much as possible of the per kilo price makes its way back into farmers pockets,” he argued, saying that we need to look at “bypassing the factories through direct selling or more co-op style organisations”.