With farmers in Ireland getting an increasingly-raw deal and family farms under greater threat than ever, Wicklow IFA chairman Tom Shortt is doing all in his power to give more control back to the primary producer – the most important link in the food chain.
We met up with the Newtownmountkennedy tillage farmer to discuss the measures being taken to achieve a more level playing field for farmers in the Garden County.
Tom Shortt was elected chairman of Wicklow IFA in January, 2013; it’s a four-year term. He’s been a member of the Irish Farmers Association for two decades and his father was an active member before him. “A lot of decisions affecting Irish farmers are taken at European level now and the IFA is here to drive those policies in a way that Irish farmers want to see them driven,” he notes.
“Europe is giving us a significant amount of money through the Single Farm Payment and it’s vitally important that we have an organisation like the IFA to get farmers the best deal possible or else we will lose family farms. We are losing family farms at a worrying rate but the IFA is here to ensure that this trend doesn’t continue.”
The family farm is an intrinsic part of the very fabric of Irish life and its preservation is critical from both a social and economic perspective. Tom is proud that Irish farms punch well above their weight; in turn, the IFA – which has around 80,000 members – as an organisation needs to do likewise.
“Ireland is small by European standards but we are recognised as a premier food producer. The family farm is a very important structure here and protecting that farm moving forward is what we are all about. Farmers spend a lot of money in the local economy and this money keeps the wheels turning throughout the country.
“The IFA is trying to protect the family farm but retailers are pulling huge margins out of our product and squeezing our margins. Proper margins have to be maintained or farmers cannot survive. The perception of food is that it is something that will always be there, but the guys who produce it are being pushed to the pin of their collar. A lot of this is due to a poor national attitude towards food.
“The housewife is on a budget and will naturally want to purchase the cheapest products possible, but we have to get the message through to her and to all end users that the primary producer needs to get a fair margin.
“We will never get rich farming but we have to get a fair margin and we have lost control as primary producers. Take for example, the price of a pint of Guinness – about 1% of that goes to the farmer for his barley. It’s the same with prime steaks and countless other products. The primary producer is getting squeezed and at the same time they have rising costs to contend with. We are losing 2% of farm families every year because their operations are unviable and we can’t afford to keep losing them at this rate.”
The age-old perception that farmers are loaded couldn’t be further off the mark: “To make an average industrial wage out of farming – if not in milk – you would have to have 250 acres plus,” Tom continues. “So you either get bigger or go part-time. At present, one-fifth of Irish farmers are part-time. The IFA is pushing to keep as much control as possible and to get fair rates for our members. For every Euro that a farmer earns, €4 goes into the local economy, so it is in everybody’s interest to ensure that our members are getting a fairer deal.”
Switching his focus to the region he represents, the chairman of Wicklow IFA points out: “We have about 1,100 members. Wicklow is a relatively-small county, divided in two – east Wicklow and west Wicklow, which is part of Kildare, so really the area I represent runs from the shore to the mountains.
“We have 25,000 milking cows, 25,000 sucking / beef cows, 270,000 breeding sheep – making us the second-largest sheep meat producers in the country – and 10,000 hectares of arable. Even though it’s a small county, farming in Wicklow is still a significant enterprise and we didn’t get the name of the garden of Ireland for nothing! About one-third of the land in the county is farmland; one-third is under forestry; and one-third is owned by parks and wildlife.”
Like every county in Ireland, Wicklow has more than its fair share of problems to contend with. “One of the biggest problems is that of wild deer coming from the uplands onto farms and causing severe health and safety issues. They can spread diseases like TB and they represent a major threat but nobody wants to take responsibility for them. We now have a national deer management forum which recognises that wild deer have become a problem and are crucifying farmers both in terms of spreading disease and also grazing on their land.
“Grain is significant in Wicklow along the coast. It’s low margin, however, and we would strongly promote the forward selling of grain during the year to get the best possible price.
“We have a significant amount of beef and that’s also low margin but schemes like Glas, disadvantaged area payments and suckler cow schemes etc. are vital and help make small farms more viable.
“We also have a significant number of potato growers in Wicklow, although not as many as we used to have because guys are coming under increased pressure from supermarkets using food as loss leaders. Potato farmers are more efficient now and are producing more but they are fighting a losing battle unless we can get legislation introduced to ban below-cost selling of their produce. And it’s not just the Irish government that we’re lobbying on this; the EU also has to accept that we are losing primary producers at a rate that we can no longer sustain.
“The 25,000 milking cows in Wicklow will increase with the abolition of quotas and this is an exciting time for dairy farming. Younger guys are really looking forward to being able to produce as much milk as they want but at the same time they have to be careful as there is no safety net.
“When all is said and done, Ireland has an excellent name for producing quality food and everybody wants our produce, but they can’t keep squeezing the primary producer. We have no problem with the processors or the retailers having a decent margin but it shouldn’t be excessive at the expense of the farmer, without whom there wouldn’t be any products in the first place. The high costs of production in Ireland also have to be taken into account.
“At the end of the day, if you produce a product that is of a very high standard then you deserve to get paid accordingly. Farmers have to get their fair cut. In Ireland we simply can’t afford to keep losing 2% of farm families every year; we need to sustain them in a viable way.”
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 3 No 6, July 2015
