Additional reporting by Sylvester Phelan
“If the Government is serious about renewable energy and reducing emissions, they’re going to have to put their hand in their pocket and provide funding for it,” according to the president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), Tim Cullinan.
Speaking at the Laois IFA annual general meeting (AGM), Cullinan – who is only a little over a week in office – outlined: “We’ve had a lot of talk out of Government in the last few years about the renewable industry yet it has sat on its hands.
Without funding these schemes can’t happen. We all want to be able to put solar panels on the roof.
Cullinan told attendees at the meeting that he was in Italy last summer and visited a farm with 200 cows.
“All of his roofs were completely covered with solar panels; he had a biogas plant going in the yard, and he was making as much or maybe more out of that end of the business than the cows.”
He told IFA members at the meeting of a beef-finishing unit he visited in the country as well and said the farmer told him he was making ‘a lot more’ money out of the renewable energy than he was off the bulls.
Farm safety
In drawing the IFA meeting to a close, Cullinan reminded farmers: “We’re into calving season now. We’re all busy people. The slurry is moving and the machinery is getting bigger and bigger the whole time.”
He reminded all farmers to farm safely and said: “One death is too many in any one year.”