Too much of IFA’s time and energy go into electioneering
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.
Already at least five candidates are being publicly identified as “active” in the campaign to take over from John Dillon in January 2006. They will be at it nearly as long as US presidential candidates Bush and Kerry.
Strong guidelines were issued by the IFA in the run up to the local and European Parliament elections last June, restricting the involvement of IFA officers who threw their hat into the ring as candidates, agents or activists.
This was a good document, aimed at keeping party politics out of the organisation.
The constitution of the IFA sets out the organisation’s non-political principles, which have stood the test of time in its 50 years of representing farmers.
But the Association has not been without its leaders who devoted a lot of effort in the final years of their presidencies to courting party political nominations, taking from their IFA work, and endangering their independence in representing farmers.
It is equally hard for senior officers, aspiring to IFA’s top job and electioneering through the next 17 months, to devote sufficient time to representing their members, keeping abreast of and resolving day to day farming issues.
Long election campaigns have become a problem for the IFA. Finding a solution is not going to be easy.
