Most farmers will not reduce output in 2005
In the first survey on what farmers will do post January 1, 2005, a high proportion pledge to carry on regardless.
Up to 65% of farmers say they will not reduce output against 35% who say they will.
Up to 10,000 took part in the survey carried out at the Ploughing Championship.
And it contradicts the view that with money being paid over by Brussels directly to the farming community thousands would opt to take the money and reduce production that hasn’t exactly being paying worthwhile dividends anyway.
Why flog a dead horse, in other words. Surprisingly the survey carried out by another newspaper suggests strongly that the links to the land are deeper than some analysts believe.
As soon as the non production based payment system starts commentators suggested farmers would take the opportunity to significantly lower their involvement in the sector, but the survey suggests otherwise.
A few things need to be said about this gushing statement of intent by those still working the land.
While it shows a strong commitment to earning a living from agriculture the reality is that for centuries farmers have been leaving the land.
It is interesting too that even with the generous EU subsidies those opting out of agriculture, for good economic and life style reasons, has continued unabated.
Are we to believe that those left on the land will continue to toil away when in reality they can keep Brussels sweet by a minimum amount of output in the years ahead?
Perhaps the reason the 65% were adamant they will keep up levels of production is their hope that a daughter or son will fill their shoes when they retire.
In many cases I suspect the reason they will continue is their last act of defiance on behalf of a way of life that is rapidly becoming extinct.
Many farmers either have nobody coming up to inherit the farm or they are part of that growing band who have sons and daughters who simply do not want the bother of it all.
That is not to decry the lifestyle. It is simply the case that in this world of convenience, flash holidays and big cars, working the land has lost its appeal. The farmer is now a little bit like the priest and the school teacher.
Once regarded as the pillars of rural society, their standing has been eroded by economic progress and a serious expansion of the education system.
To a degree, being a farmer has lost its status also, for different reasons perhaps, but it is nonetheless true.
The bottom line is that at most we are looking at there being 40,000 full-time farmers in this country in another few years out of the existing number of 120,000. This, despite the very generous CAP costing Europe over €50 billion per annum to fund.
The survey says a lot about the hold farming still has on the Irish psyche, but the IFA says we are still looking at the early days of this new payment system.
At the end of the day no right thinking farmer will continue to produce at a loss, irrespective of the attachment to the land, the IFA believes.
It has also emerged that one in five farmers were dissatisfied with their provisional Single Farm Payment (SFP) entitlements.
This clearly is a hot topic and the Department of Agriculture continues to be hit with 5,000 calls a week from farmers querying their payment values.
It has received a total of 50,000 calls to its SFP help line since it was established in early September.
That figure probably gives you a very good idea that at the end of the day, farmers are fully aware of the power of Europe when it comes to determining what their income will be.
That reality will ultimately decide how many serious farmers will remain intact in this country.
