75% of farmers say urban/rural divide is growing
The Irish Examiner/ICMSA farming survey found farmers are increasingly feeling that rural Ireland is being left behind the main urban centres.
The study found 75% of farmers agree or strongly agree that the divide between urban and rural Ireland “is wider than ever”, with just over 13% disagreeing.
This view was held almost equally across farmers of all ages, with more than seven out of 10 farmers in every age group believing the urban/rural divide was the widest it has ever been.
Geographically, farmers interviewed at agricultural shows in Tullamore in Offaly (87%) and Dungarvan in Waterford (92%) were virtually all in agreement about the growing divide among urban and rural Ireland.
However, fewer than half (45%) of those surveyed in Carbery in Cork agreed that the divide was the widest it has ever been — the lowest of any area surveyed.
Farmers intending to vote for independent candidates in the next election most keenly felt the divide, with 83% in agreement that it was wider than ever.
These were followed by Sinn Féin voters (78%), Fianna Fáil (76%), non-voters (75%), Fine Gael (73%), and Labour (66%).
Commenting on the perceived divide between urban and rural Ireland that is increasingly felt by farmers, ICMSA president John Comer said it was ironic this statistic had emerged on the one week in the year when the national media leaves the cities to visit the “country cousins”.
“I think that rural dwellers sometimes resent the fact that urban or suburban based commentators just don’t understand — or seem to care — that people have to live in the countryside and that certain services have got to be maintained in order for that to be possible,” he said.
Mr Comer pointed out that the media still often fails to grasp just how isolated rural Ireland is becoming from the urban centres as services are being removed
“If all you have to do is walk around your Dublin or Cork suburb to use the post office or call into the Garda Barracks or visit the local GP then I don’t think you can really appreciate how cut-off and isolated people feel when they see their rural post offices and barracks close down or be amalgamated with some other office 10 or 12 miles away, he said.
Mr Comer said farmers often felt they were being portrayed as “whingy” when asking for services the rest of the country takes for granted.
“We think that’s desperately unfair but is probably a natural function of the way that our population is moving further and further away from the kind of farming and rural roots that until quite recently would have been the majority background,” he said.
