The National Ploughing Association (NPA) is considering its options for providing the public with an online taster as to what would have been on show this year at the National Ploughing Championships.

Speaking to AgriLand, NPA deputy managing director Anna Marie McHugh said:

“We’re working at what the options are, just to give something to the exhibitors at that time. We’ll have some kind of focus on what would have been at the Ploughing.”

This follows the news last week that the NPA was forced to cancel the National Ploughing Trade Exhibition due to take place in Ballintrane, Fenagh, Co. Carlow, from September 15 to September 17, due to health and safety challenges posed by Covid-19.

However, the association still hopes that there will be an opportunity to run the ploughing competitions behind closed gates due to the pandemic.

In a statement last Friday, May 8, the NPA managing director Anna May McHugh said:

“The executive reached this very difficult decision to cancel the trade exhibition as public health and safety is our foremost priority given the current global pandemic.

“With visitor attendance last year of 297,000 and up to 1,700 exhibitors, we had too many concerns about how we could implement social distancing and the potential risk of bringing together people from all over the country.

“However, we are still hoping that we may be able to run the National Ploughing Competitions behind closed gates and that situation will be closely reviewed over the next number of weeks,” McHugh said.