Shipment of wheat held in storage after farmer protest
Following talks, IFA Grain Committee chairman Paddy Harrington said it had secured the agreement of the trader and the storage company that this commitment will be honoured.
The wheat will only be released onto the market after consultation with the IFA and at a time when it will not distort the market price for grain.
Mr Harrington said the IFA has given a commitment that local growers will supply native grain at the same price to replace the imported grain.
Grain farmers from Wexford, Wicklow, Louth, Cork and Meath held the protest in Drogheda Port last weekend. They claimed grain imports are destroying their livelihoods.
Mr Harrington said importing a 3,000 tonne shipment of wheat into Drogheda during peak harvesting was a deliberate attempt to undermine grain merchants’ and farmers’ confidence and the price of Irish grain.
“This is not the cheap imported wheat we were led to believe was freely available, but rather a load of expensive wheat, designed to force grain farmers and merchants to offload grain at discounted grain prices onto the market.”
Mr Harrington called on growers to look for a minimum price of 94 per tonne plus VAT for their grain and warned the IFA will not allow traders to undermine the grain industry.
Deputy Billy Timmons, Fine Gael spokesman on agriculture, said the blockade showed the despair felt by grain farmers at the inaction of Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh to address their plight.
He called on Mr Walsh to raise the matter with the EU Commission and ensure a proper tariff system is put in place to prevent flooding of the market with cheap Balkan products.
Meanwhile, the IFA plans to lobby TDs on the broader farm incomes crisis when the Dáil resumes tomorrow. Sheep farmers will be among those taking part. Sheep Committee chairman Laurence Fallon said they will take their protest against the “complex and unworkable”
Department of Agriculture individual identification and registration system for sheep directly to the politicians.
