Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Senator Pippa Hackett, has said part-time farmers deserve more respect and should be supported.
Part-time farmers should be in higher regard than they currently are, according to Hackett, who also told the Seanad that most farmers are part-time in Ireland.
She added that “there is nothing wrong with that, some of the best farmers [she] knows are part-time”.
The term “hobby farmer” remains used in relation to part-time farmers as a sort of insult, Minister Hackett stated.
“With a levelling of EU direct payments in the form of convergence and other measures, it’s quite likely that we will see more part-time farmers into the future,” she added.
While some bemoan this, Minister Hackett believes this change should be welcomed, encouraged, and indeed supported.
She further questioned how productive or commercial farming is regarded and the environmental impact it is having.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t be quite so quick to consider the drive for more and more production as an unquestionable good,” the minister stated.
She added:
“It shouldn’t matter whether a farmer is full-time or part-time, rather that they do more than produce a profit at any cost.”
For example, according to data from Teagasc, Minister Hackett said 90% of hedges on intensive farms are classified as low quality. This leads to issues such as impoverished ground flora and low species-diversity, she said.
Other pressures are also increasing on such farms including the rise in energy, fertiliser and feed costs, which impact farmers across the country.
The pig sector is in huge difficulty and grassland farmers are facing challenges in terms of fertility inputs this year, according to the minister.
Part-time farmers see themselves as “true custodians of land” and are determined to leave land nurtured, regenerated and enriched to the next generation.
“Let’s start acknowledging those farmers”, Minister Hackett concluded.