Too much of IFA’s time and energy go into electioneering

A FORMER Minister for Agriculture was frequently heard to say that TDs could learn a lot from politics in the farmer organisations.

Maybe he was right. Some farmers hold the view, rightly or wrongly, that the farming organisations put more into political manoeuvring and campaigning for positions of leadership than into the pressing issues of their members.

With a campaign now in progress for an IFA presidential election not due to take place until the end of 2005, it is hard to discredit the belief that electioneering takes up a lot of energy, time and planning within the most powerful of the national farming organisations.