Taoiseach Micheál Martin has been told to "stand up to" environmental non-government organisations (NGOs) and serial objectors to agricultural developments.

The Taoiseach appeared at the annual general meeting (AGM) of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) in Limerick today (Friday, November 28).

Denis Drennan, the association's president, said that the "whole country was beginning to experience the exhausting ‘dog in the manger’ attitude brought to every debate and decision by self-appointed and self-elected NGOs and serial objectors".

"If [the Taoiseach] wants to know what independent national grassroots organisations look like he has only to look out on the hundreds of ICMSA members," Drennan said.

"They pay their own way, and in the very unlikely event of their association going to court to defend farm family interests, then they pay their own legal bills," he added.

On the nitrates derogation, and the prospect of a three-year extension, Drennan said that "the devil will be in the detail".

"The right policy in the right place at the right time is always superior to the one-size-fits-all policy that present policy is based on," the ICMSA president added.

Mercosur

The Taoiseach, as well as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon, were also challenged at the ICMSA AGM on the EU-Mercosur Agreement being progressed through the EU.

Drennan claimed that it is "difficult to see Ireland’s opposition to the agreemet" and that Ireland’s public position of opposition has been "regrettably lacklustre".

Milk price

Much of the debate at the AGM was focussed on the downturn in milk price in recent months.

According to the ICMSA, its members have lost around 10c/L in just the last three months, resulting in an income loss of thousands of euro and farmer milk price falling to just below the costs of production.

Drennan claimed that the rest of the dairy sector uses the farmer-suppliers as the sector’s "risk management tool".

Drennan reiterated the ICMSA's support for a farmer deposit scheme - allowing farmers to put away money in good years and drawing it down in bad years - which he said would have mitigated the fall in milk price.

"Such a scheme has been designed and presented to the government before the last budget but has been ignored, as similar schemes have been ignored for the last decade" Drennan said.

He added: "Volatility in income and the uncertainty around issues like nitrates means that the next generation of farmers are not going into the sector.

It was the farming and food sector’s exports that rebuilt the state’s economic foundation after the 2010 crash. If anything similar happened again and the government of the day turned around to ask the farming and food sector to ‘get going’ and produce the food to export and rebuild national finances, the government would find no-one left in the milking parlours or cattle sheds," Drennan claimed.

Young people want, and are entitled to, stable incomes and the ability to plan their futures. If farming can not give them that, and present policies leave us unable to do that, then they will find those features elsewhere," the ICMSA president warned.