I believe that the farm minister missed a wonderful opportunity to lay out his thoughts on the future of Irish tillage sector.
To me, a post-Budget press conference was a ‘penalty kick’ opportunity to make this happen.
Let’s be honest, everyone that I spoke to at this year’s Ploughing was highlighting the absolute imperative of expanding the area of crops grown in Ireland: Farm industry leaders, grain buyers and individual farmers.
Gain growers, in particular, want to make this happen. They see the opportunity now of ‘combining’ an expanded acreage with the growing of more value-added crops as being the one way of securing a sustainable future for themselves.
Tillage
Tillage ticks every box imaginable. The sector has an inherently low carbon footprint, the argument that Irish livestock farmers should use more local grain – for every good reason – has already been won and there is also no doubt that a better grassland:crops mix would do wonders for biodiversity levels in rural areas.
The added significance of the minister referencing crops in a strategic manner at this time of the year reflects the fact that the autumn planting season is now underway.
Farmers are more likely to give that added thought to expansion as they are actually planting-out crops.
So, yes, expanding the area of crops in Ireland has a lot going for it. The one missing ingredient in the mix is the current lack of government support to make all this happen.
And, again, this was a point universally made by farm organisation representatives and other tillage industry representatives who engaged me in conversation at Rathiniskea.
Increase crops
So let’s puts some figures to all of this. Members of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) believe that the area of crops grown in Ireland should be increased to 15% of the available land area.
That seems like a plan to me.
Where Minister McConalogue is concerned, I would not have expected him to launch a full-blown tillage policy document at the recent press conference. But he could, at least, have given some indication as to his thinking on the matter.
The last thing grain growers want is to have one good year, only for the rug to be pulled from beneath their feet 12 months down the road.
Tillage has the potential to be an amazing success story for Irish agriculture. But the sector needs structured and targeted support from government.