Review a timely opportunity for IFA to examine itself

IFA’s announcement of a review of its activities will give the organisation a timely opportunity in 2005, its 50th year, to guard itself against mid-life crisis.

In 1955 the NFA founding fathers sought economic survival for impoverished farmers, who played a vital national role in our pre-industrialisation economy, but who needed a new voice to fight their corner and battle for their fair share.

The challenges facing farmers today are very different. They include keeping enough people on the land to generate farming production, and fighting off the processing and marketing sectors to retain a fair share of the consumer spend.