Family farm model under pressure

A combination of factors is contriving to put unprecedented pressure on the Irish and European Union model of family farming, the Irish Farmers Association president Eddie Downey claimed at a conference held in Dublin yesterday to celebrate the UN International Year of Family Farming.

Mr Downey told the conference that Irish farm families, like those all over the world, do a vital job and play a pivotal role in the economic well-being of rural communities, where agriculture represents the backbone of their economies.

Every family in Ireland and across the globe depends on the output of family farms for their very being, he said.

Mr Downey said a combination of extreme price volatility, escalating input costs that bear no relationship to farm market returns, reduced EU support in real terms for productive farming, inequity in a food supply chain and a never-ending assortment of costly political and societal bureaucratic interference is sapping income and profitability out of family farming. He said that farming is a labour-intensive business and the EU farm family model must be protected.